Additionally, Matthias Schulz, who led the development and market introduction of LearnCube, will become managing director for OutStart GmbH, reporting directly to Massood Zarrabian, OutStart president and CEO.


Creating OutStart GmbH furthers the company's strategic expansion across the globe by establishing a physical presence in an important European region. It also provides an immediate quality base of (LearnCube) customers and adds another award-winning product to the OutStart portfolio. OutStart will continue research and development efforts for LearnCube managed by the existing German LearnCube development team and plans to integrate the product with OutStart Evolution LCMS. The integration will offer LearnCube customers a single learning-content-management repository to support their eLearning initiatives.


"We have identified the German-speaking regions of Europe as a strong market for OutStart, with both multi-national and small and mid-sized businesses," said Massood Zarrabian, president and CEO of OutStart. "The acquisition of LearnCube, which we will continue to enhance, jump starts our initiative by immediately creating a strong customer base in the region and adding a well-regarded product to our portfolio. With Matthias Schulz as managing director, we have an experienced executive who understands the region's business practices as well as the learning and knowledge-sharing market."


"There is significant market opportunity for learning and knowledge-sharing solutions in the German-speaking regions of Europe," said Matthias Schulz, managing director, OutStart GmbH. "OutStart's entire portfolio of products, including LearnCube, will allow us to meet many different customer requirements with an expansive breadth of offerings for outstanding value."


Matthias Schulz is managing director of OutStart GmbH and chairman of the German section of the Macromedia eLearning Group. This association has been formed by a number of eLearning companies with the aim to consolidate XML-based eLearning specifications. Mr. Schulz is one of the chairmen of the Modularization working group at the German Standards Institute.


This organization develops instructional and technical specifications for media-based education. Mr. Schulz has consulted for knowledge management and eLearning for a number of German blue-chip companies, e.g. AUDI and TUI. Mr. Schulz studied economics at the University of Saarbrücken, Germany and is about to undertake his doctorate on learning organisations.