LM-Less

Mar 09, 2011

Does anyone out there know anything about LM-Less Learning Management? 

Thanks!

11 Replies
Gerry Wasiluk

Thanks.  Looks interesting (and unless I'm missing something) if all you want to do is e-learning, it might be fine.

Over time, you may find yourself wanting to do things like virtual classroom, virtual learning environments, ILTs, certifications, etc.  In which case it looks like you'd need another LMS.

Price seems a bit high for me per but I'm no expert there. 

Also, if the LMS needs to integrate with your other systems, wonder what your options are?  The trend is toward an integrated set of applications around talent, learning, and performance.  Makes me wonder if the standalone LMS's may one day become more like dinosaurs? 

James Brown

Course sites offers a free LMS and honestly what raises a red flag with LMS - Less is they don't want to tell you anything about their product until you have signed up. Unless they are a new company, generally you can find videos on You Tube but my search pulled back absolutely nothing. If all the reviews you are finding happen to be negative, and there really is no published documents on this product, I would stay clear of them.

Steve Flowers

I rather like the setup offered by the folks over at Rustici (http://scorm.com/scorm-solved/scorm-cloud/scorm-cloud-pricing/). This might not work out well for your needs but it's worth a look. The idea here is to provide a tracking resource that can be attached to another application. Essentially making the LMS vanish into the background. Successful implementation, however, would depend on how well your integrators understand and are able to implement your vision.

Pricing seems comparable.Though I think benefit would be situational. Scorm cloud tracks by registration associations, not by user. If you had 100 users registered in 10 courses each per month the Rustici solution wouldn't work out as well as the link above. However, if you had 20,000 users and only had 150 course registrations per month the cloud would provide a better deal. For 2000 course registrations you're looking at $1000 / month. That may sound like alot until you see how much a full tilt LMS is charging for licensing alone (forget about customization or hosting - woo-doggies.)

All things considered, the LM-Less per month option doesn't seem terribly priced. But it'll get outa hand quick if you have a large number of users. You'll also want to ask about user account swaps. If they will never let you remove a user from a system you're going to get handcuffed with large licensing fees quickly over the years.

I really wish all of these options were available years ago. I think the LMS market is headed for a little bit of a shake-up as the behemoths are recognized as overpriced for the service / value delivered.

Gerry Wasiluk

I really wish all of these options were available years ago. I think the LMS market is headed for a little bit of a shake-up as the behemoths are recognized as overpriced for the service / value delivered.

Yes and no.  We just added a second Saba LMS for external training and the price per user was far less than than this.  Can't say any more about the terms.

I think the big boys are hungry due to competition and a good negotiator can sometimes pull off a sweetheart deal. 

Steve Horvath

Hi everyone, I work for LM•LESS and would like to answer some of your questions/concerns (I'm the art director not a sales guy).

LM•LESS is not a new company but a brand new product from Thinking Cap aimed at smaller and medium sized organizations who don't require or have the resources for such a robust LMS solution as our Thinking Cap LMS. We released it in February, which is why we don't yet have a ton of material out there just yet.

The idea behind the product is to allow people to get themselves a hosted LMS without having to deal with those 'pesky salespeople.' Being a hosted or SAAS solution avoids all the problems like: server maintenance, hosting, upgrades, etc, you can just sign up and have your LMS. Also by giving both monthly and annual pricing at many different levels we want people to get what they need for their sized organization. 

LM•LESS is a SCORM 2004 certified LMS meaning any of the SCORM compliant content you've already created previously can be used in our LMS. We also allow Powerpoint projects to be uploaded and viewed as courses, since so many organizations have their content in this format.

We don't wish to hide any of the functionality of our product and a great deal of it can all be seen in our getting started guide located here: http://www.slideshare.net/LMLESS/getting-started-with-lmless

We've also created a quick start guide to branding your LMS: http://www.slideshare.net/LMLESS/branding-your-lms

I hope this clears up a few things for everyone. If you have any further comments, concerns or questions at all don't hesitate to contact me: steve@lmless.com or visit the site: http://www.lmless.com/

Steve Horvath

Steve Flowers said:

IYou'll also want to ask about user account swaps. If they will never let you remove a user from a system you're going to get handcuffed with large licensing fees quickly over the years.

Hey Steve, 

In LM•LESS user account swaps aren't an issue. Only active users are counted against your selected user total. You could have a thousand users in a 100 user account but if only 88 are active you'll be just fine. Also, it's no problem if you want to delete a user to keep things organized it will never count against your total.

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