Wimba

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Wimba Offers Wimba Collaboration Suite™ As Locally Hosted Solution for Canadian Customers

State-of-the-Art Canadian Data Centre Supports Growing Number of Canadian Customers

NEW YORK – March 4, 2009 – Wimba® Inc., the education technology company that helps people teach people, today announced it will support its growing number of Canadian customers with a local, state-of-the-art data centre. By making the Wimba Collaboration Suite™ available as a locally-hosted solution, even more Canadian educators will have access to this innovative technology for collaborative teaching and learning.

Wimba understands how critical it is for educators to protect user data and to ensure the reliability of their online learning environments. The Canadian data centre includes multiple redundancies to ensure the highest availability of Wimba’s applications, while at the same time ensuring hosted data stays in-country.

“Our relationship with Wimba is best described as a partnership. They listen when we suggest product improvements, and they listen when we describe our national challenge of protecting the privacy of Canadians in accordance with enhanced legislation,” stated Phil O’Hara, Manager of the Integrated Learning Online group at Dalhousie University. “The new Canadian Hosting Service is a positive initiative toward providing a safe and secure learning environment for both students and instructors. It exemplifies Wimba’s responsiveness to our unique Canadian requirements and their commitment to our success.”

The Wimba Collaboration Suite offers a rich array of collaborative tools that replicate the dynamic elements of traditional classroom instruction to enhance learning, improve outcomes, and increase student retention. Part of the impetus for offering local support is due to requests made by Wimba’s growing number of Canadian customers. Institutions such as Athabasca University, the University of Western Ontario, Centennial College, York University, Seneca College, LEARN, and Dalhousie University have selected Wimba to provide collaborative learning solutions.

“Because protection of user data is obviously a priority to all of our customers and because any downtime in a collaborative learning environment is problematic, we are very pleased to offer local support to our Canadian customers,” stated Jim Thibeau, Senior Vice President, Global Services at Wimba. “The data centre with which we’ve partnered is a world-class facility and meets our demanding security and reliability standards.”

Like Wimba’s other data centers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, physical security measures coupled with regular system monitoring for unauthorized activity ensures privacy and security of data.
 
Customers interested in additional information regarding the Canadian data centre can contact Jaron Easterbrook, regional sales manager for Canada, via phone at (250) 483-7272 or e-mail at jaron@wimba.com.

To learn more about the Wimba Collaboration Suite visit www.wimba.ca