Competitors

This competitive analysis compares Coursera against Lynda.com and Udacity. All three companies are for-profit e-learning social enterprise that are enjoying much success in the current global e-learning market. As well, Lynda.com and Udacity targets the same two audience groups as Coursera - adult learners looking to fill in some skill gaps to round out their resume and/or are looking to receive some continuing education certification from online courses respectively. Furthermore, all three organizations offer a product that strongly relies on asynchronous learning through video tutorials that can be viewed offline and on multiple platforms and various devices.

Lynda.com

E-learning, like all other things digital, can have a high turnover rate of companies. Having been around for over 20 years and recently sold to LinkedIn for $1.5 billion, Lynda.com is a successful veteran in this field. Conversely, Coursera is still in the building phase of its organization's life and with its strong academic focus and partnerships, it is doubtful that Coursera will sell to a corporation in the near future. However, this comparison gives one potential forecast of what Coursera can be in 15 years. Also, comparing Coursera with Lynda.com direts us to look at Coursera from a commercial point of view as a skill-building tool.

Udacity

On the other hand, comparin g Coursera against Udacity shifts our focus to an academic perspective and frames the analysis of it as an open-source learning tool that is looking to provide the world with affordable yet quality post-secondary education but with the option for certification. At this time, both platforms are trying to shift their students from free courses to paid certification. Additionally, Udacity was launched approximately ten months before Coursera and also began as an outgrowth of a university course which allows us to compare two similarly-aged, similarly-focused company.