Brussels, Belgium, January 21, 2009 – JavaBlackBelt, a leader in Java learning and now powered by over 50,000 developers in its European community, today announced the opening of its web 2.0-based Java skills management services to enterprises in the US and India. Specifically, it has reached agreement with Boston-based Global Force DIRECT™ for distribution rights across these regions.

The JavaBlackBelt service, driven by crowd-sourcing/moderation, already offers the world’s most comprehensive, state-of-the-art digest of Java skills questions. From the site, developers take online assessments served from the digest across seven levels and 19 categories. Managers access a rich set of online skill performance reports, learning path creation/tracking tools, and the ability to incorporate enterprise content into their Java skills management.

JavaBlackBelt’s popularity is based on the following factors:

· It is highly engaging: because JavaBlackBelt is online and community based, developers are far more likely to consistently engage and embrace skills management. For example, JavaBlackBelt members now answer about 5M questions per year (one every 6 seconds).

· It offers comprehensive content: because the content is crowd-sourced/moderated by over 50,000 members, it inherently keeps pace with the ever-expanding nature of Java and its environments.

· It supports enterprise learning priorities: JavaBlackBelt skills management is immediately useable, is well-matched with blended learning, works naturally for global teams, can be securely connected to any LMS, and offers compelling cost savings.

Steven Eggenstein, Java Domain Leader at Capgemini (NYSE: CAP), one of the world's foremost consulting firms with over 88,000 employees across America, Europe, and Asia, comments, “At Capgemini, we’re consistently fostering an innovative environment in order to provide better services to our clients.”

He continues, "JavaBlackBelt supports that goal by enabling us to precisely assess and systemically upgrade the technology skills of our Java developers and architects. We’re also finding that the support and tools to explore and expand their technical knowledge heightens motivation and, in turn, furthers innovation. For Capgemini, these are all fundamental components to putting the customer first.”

Indeed, JavaBlackBelt ushers in a new era of Java “continuous skills management”. Managers can assess skills and improve decision-making at all critical points in their development process, including at hiring, staffing, training, appraisals, and organizational planning. Such continuous skills management, in turn, offers consistent, major business benefits, including cost reductions, higher productivity, and increased job satisfaction.

Eggenstein cites an example, “At Capgemini, JavaBlackBelt is not only being used for acquiring Java related skills, but also as a means to evaluate the quality of training. By taking a JavaBlackBelt exam before a course, and again after the course, one can easily measure the progress. This allows for an easy selection of quality courses and training material within a given Java related technology.”

The subscription price for the JavaBlackBelt Enterprise Edition – which includes the assessments, reporting, learning management, and enterprise content -- is $250.00 (US) per developer, equivalent to the typical fee for joining an industry association, or about half the price for one day of training. Immediate pilots are available for $5,000.00. Assessments for individual developers are available at no charge simply by joining and contributing to the JavaBlackBelt Community Edition.

Managers can learn more by visiting www.globalforcedirect.com/javablackbelt, emailing javablackbelt@globalforcedirect.com, or calling +1-617-418-4450 (US) or +91 9818630681 (India). Developers can start their assessments immediately at www.javablackbelt.com.

More on Skills Categories

JavaBlackBelt skills management spans skill categories in Java APIs such as JMS, JDBC, Java2D, JSF, Swing, RegEx, Servlet, JSP, Core J2SE, JPA and EJB; in frameworks such as Tapestry, Spring, Struts, JDom, JGoodies, Log4J, and Hibernate; in products such as Tomcat, JUnit, Ant, WebSphere, Maven, Eclipse, PMD, and CVS; and in related categories such as OO, Design Patterns, XML, HTML, UML, and SQL. As the JavaBlackBelt content is crowd-sourced/moderated, categories expand to keep pace with advancements in Java technologies.