Blackboard has become the Microsoft of higher-education technology, say many campus-technology officials, and they do not mean the comparison as a compliment. To them the company is not only big, but also pushy, and many of them love to hate it. This article reports that a growing number of colleges are switching to Moodle, a free, open-source course-management system, or Sakai, another free program. Those systems have grown feature-rich enough to pose serious challenges to Blackboard. A new software called Blackboard NG, for Next Generation, is supposed to keep the company a step ahead and keep some dissatisfied college clients from leaving for open-source alternatives.