Integration of CLIX into SharePoint Portal technology provides users with direct access to all the core functions of the CLIX LMS, such as training catalogs, courses and curricula. No longer obliged to run a number of applications in parallel from their desktops, students and university staff can now get central access to the resources they need.

Both technologies continue to offer their full advantages, the special role of CLIX being to provide optimum support for all learning processes while ensuring that learning offerings reach their target groups in a structured way. At the same time, uniformity of access enables the SharePoint Server to bundle a range of applications, ensuring uniformity of usage in addition to a whole raft of communication and co-operational functionality.

Swantje Rosenboom-Lehmann, the head of Research & Higher Education at Microsoft Deutschland GmbH comments: "The demands made on places of higher learning in the wake of the Bologna Process have rendered integrative and process-oriented infrastructures an absolute must. Combining the SharePoint Portal Server-based Learning Gateway with the CLIX LMS is the first important milestone toward achieving the perception of eLearning in places of higher learning as a standard feature of university teaching programs, rather than as a monolithic system".

The integration of CLIX functionality into the SharePoint Server is based on so-called webparts. Individual functions are modeled in special SharePoint Portal fields. At the same time, new combinations of functionality have been included, thus enhancing the usefulness of the applications made available via the portal.

Dr. Tilman Kuechler, Director of Higher Education at IMC AG, commented on the partnership between Microsoft and IMC in the field of higher learning: "Universities have understood the many benefits which a central portal can provide, and many are now pressing forward to provide their target groups with a 'single point of contact' via a portal. Moreover, integration of CLIX webparts in SharePoint is easier to achieve than the costly integration of the go-it-alone developments frequently encountered at universities. We take the view that because the icons and GUI are matched to Microsoft Office applications, and thus already familiar to most users, the SharePoint Portal Server not only provides highly-developed functions but also supports acceptance of the combined solutions it offers."

Dr. Wolfgang Kraemer and Frank Milius, board members at IMC AG, also see great potential in the corporate marketplace: "Although the special aim of our cooperation with Microsoft was the higher education sector, integration of CLIX into the SharePoint Portal Server gives our partnership a new dimension, adding a unique and clearly-defined global feature to our solutions."