eCollege(R) System Supports Record One Billion Usage Minutes to Date in 2007

Metrics Demonstrate Strength of On-Demand Model in Serving High-Growth Market 


DENVER, March 5  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- eCollege(R) (NASDAQ:ECLG), a leading provider of value-added information services to the post-secondary education industry, today announced that the eCollege System hit an all time high on Friday, March 2, 2007, supporting a record one billion usage minutes since January 1, 2007.  The Company achieved this record high user load, which represents hundreds of thousands of students and instructors, while continuing to provide the highest levels of system performance, uptime and reliability.

"Today's achievement demonstrates the uniqueness of our on-demand solution in supporting a high-growth market," said Oakleigh Thorne, chairman and CEO of eCollege.  "We are hitting these impressive metrics at a much faster pace than ever before, and despite the dramatic increase in usage, we continue to build on our track record of providing unparalleled scalability and availability. This is critical to our customers' large and fast-growing programs, as it helps drive student satisfaction and retention, and overall program success."

eCollege has long tracked usage metrics to ensure its capacity plans align with and stay well ahead of anticipated growth as its customers' programs evolve.  According to eCollege's historical metrics, it took three years from 2001-2003 for eCollege to first reach just over one billion usage minutes, compared to approximately six months to achieve one billion minutes in 2005, and two months in 2007.  Additionally, since the current eCollege System launched in mid-2000, eCollege has supported more than 10 billion usage minutes.

eCollege runs a single instance of its on-demand, software application, allowing customers to focus on delivering a high quality academic experience, while eCollege focuses on delivering a highly available online environment. The eCollege System is backed by multiple levels of redundancy, and is constantly monitored minute-by-minute from numerous locations around the world to ensure a positive user experience. The Company continually invests in its system, recently upgrading its database infrastructure to meet the evolving needs of its customers.

About eCollege

eCollege (NASDAQ:ECLG) is a leading provider of value-added information services to the post-secondary and K-12 education industries. The Company's eLearning Division designs, builds and supports some of the most successful, fully online degree, certificate/diploma and professional development programs in the country.  The Company's Enrollment Division, Datamark, Inc., helps institutions build new enrollments and increase student retention.  Customers include publicly traded for-profit institutions, community colleges, public and private universities, school districts and state departments of education. eCollege was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Chicago, with the eLearning Division headquartered in Denver. Datamark was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City.  For more information, visit http://www.ecollege.com/ and http://www.datamark.com/.

This news release contains statements that are not historical in nature and that may be characterized as "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the securities laws. Examples of these forward-looking statements would include statements about the expected levels of system usage, the expected reliability of the Company's system, the timing of product or service releases, the expected benefits to customers of our products or services, the expected impact on customers of upgrade deployments and any other statements that are not historical facts. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks. Actual performance and results may differ materially from those reflected in these forward-looking statements due to general financial, economic, regulatory and political conditions affecting the Company's industries as well as the more specific risks and uncertainties facing the Company, including those identified in the Company's reports on Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), which you are encouraged to review in connection with this release. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which are based on current expectations and speak only as of the date of this release. We are not obligated to publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events after the date of this release.

eCollege is a registered trademark of eCollege. 

DATASOURCE: eCollege



CONTACT:  Kristi Emerson of eCollege, [phone],





Web site:  http://www.ecollege.com/

http://www.datamark.com/ 

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