Jokes about "Dark Angel" and "Blackborg" surfaced almost immediately after Blackboard Inc. announced its plan to buy course-management software competitor Angel Learning, the author reports. Angel had lured away dozens of Blackboard clients in recent years with a friendly, approachable corporate culture that stood in sharp contrast to Blackboard's reputation for pushiness. Some experts predict that more colleges will now turn to open-source alternatives that give them greater control over their own destinies. Others maintain that more professors will turn to free, general-purpose Web 2.0 tools to run course blogs and discussions to avoid Blackboard, bringing an eventual death to the concept of course-management systems. Still others believe that the move will solidify Blackboard's dominance, and that, ultimately, colleges will benefit from having a strong, stable company selling them online classrooms.