Much that I cringe at big business, I have to hand it to Pearson for their smart marketing. I think a lot of this project's appeal is in making OER easily searchable and accesible from one central location. I know there are ways to do that for free out there, such as OpenDOAR, but Pearson's looks a lot slicker. Of course Pearson's own content is readily visible in searches, at least according to the screenshots. This does not seem to be an unbiased OER search engine.
Blackboard President of Academic Plateform will deliver a webinar about the changes in online learningmodels. The webinar intro states: " To stay competitive and drive measurable success, institutions are experimenting with new approaches for online education by launching MOOCs, integrating and sharing open education resources, and enhancing the learning experience for socially connected students. "
It is interesting to hear about how Blackboard's new approaches will change the open educational resources that will be stored in the iCloud.