"Our primary objective at Meridian is to provide our customers with the absolute best learning solutions", said Paul Somerville, Meridian Founder. "By expanding our offering to include OutStart Evolution LCMS and OutStart Studio in our leadership LMS suite, we are able to deliver on that promise with the finest LCMS technology in the market."

"Meridian is a company that shares the same dedication to delivering great solutions and outstanding customer support that we do at OutStart", said Massood Zarrabian, OutStart president and CEO. "We are happy to extend our relationship, which already includes successful joint customers, to offer OutStart LCMS technologies as part of their leadership suite."

OutStart and Meridian have a strong business synergy that is evident in their commitment to customer support and technical innovation. Both companies were recognized in Bersin and Associates' recent study "LMS Customer Satisfaction 2007". The independently funded study analyzed feedback from LMS customers in twenty competence areas. The study recognized Meridian as a customer loyalty leader for its high customer ratings across the board. Outstart was also recognized for its content development tools and integration, ease of use, and customer service.

"It is important for alliances to serve market needs", said Josh Bersin, president of Bersin & Associates, a research and advisory firm specializing in enterprise learning and talent management. "For most organizations today, content management has become just as important as learning management. Meridian customers will see tremendous advantages with an integrated solution for content development and management."

Both Meridian and Outstart are early adopters and ardent supporters of the SCORM standards and the ADL SCORM initiative. The support for these standards ensures reusability and interoperability among diverse learning systems and protects organizational investments in learning content.