McGraw Hill adopts MySQL for its learning software

CUPERTINO, USA: McGraw Hill Education, a global provider of educational materials, information and solutions, has chosen the MySQL database to power the network version of its widely-used "Breakthrough to Literacy" learning program, MySQL AB, developer of open source database, has announced.

MySQL's reliable performance, flexibility and small footprint have made it an ideal choice for educational software vendors and other ISVs looking for affordable integration of a database into their product offerings. Today, leading educational software vendors using MySQL include American Education Corporation, eduphoria!, eSchool Solutions, LeapFrog Enterprises, Pitsco and Siboney Corporation.

Why McGraw Hill Education adopted MySQL?

Since 1995, McGraw Hill Education's popular "Breakthrough to Literacy" software series has been helping young students in over 9,000 classrooms master read through phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge, oral vocabulary, and word recognition skills. McGraw Hill integrated the MySQL database as a core component to the new network version of the "Breakthrough to Literacy" program to let teachers store data in a central location and share student information across classrooms.

"When we first introduced the Breakthrough to Literacy software in 1995, it was offered as a stand-alone product for use on a single personal computer," noted Eric Soride, senior manager of Software Development and Technology for the "Breakthrough to Literacy" product line. "While thousands of children improved their literacy skills through the program, teachers could not easily share and track student progress between classrooms. We developed the network version to provide a central repository and better communication between teachers and computers."

For the new network version of "Breakthrough to Literacy", McGraw Hill required a robust database that could support a network with strong performance and easily work across multiple operating platforms. MySQL is now the standard database that comes with every copy of the network version of "Breakthrough to Literacy", which is already used in over 1,000 classrooms across the United States. MySQL supports all platforms for "Breakthrough to Literacy" software, including Windows, Macintosh, Novell Netware and Linux.

McGraw Hill's Soride continued, "The database for the network version of "Breakthrough to Literacy" needed to run across the operating platforms that are typically used in schools, such as Windows and Macintosh, so MySQL's strong cross-platform support was an important factor in our decision. MySQL provided everything we needed, and at a very reasonable price for a network database."