By Amber Hickman |
Skillable started its journey as Learn on Demand Systems almost three decades ago.
“It was a consulting business I ran around the turn of the century, where we were building labs and training courses for Microsoft, primarily to be deployed in classrooms,” says Corey Hynes, executive chairman of Skillable. “It was around then that virtual machine technology became a thing. A former partner and I built one of the first Microsoft Official Curriculum classes that used virtual machine technology as a delivery method, rather than a topic.
“The events team asked if we could do the same for its technical training events. So, we set up a lab room at Tech Ed San Diego 2004 with about 2,000 computers. It was very rudimentary, very simple, but it was the genesis of Skillable today.”
Operating as Learn on Demand Systems, the company continued developing its labs for events, averaging around 17 events per year. In 2014, it evolved beyond events and into classroom learning following a merger with Terillian Technologies. The firm grew further and in 2021, rebranded from Learn on Demand Systems to Skillable.
Today, Skillable’s impact is most visible at Microsoft Ignite, where it powers a hundred hands-on labs focusing on a variety of topics from Azure to Microsoft 365.
“Time is a premium,” says Hynes. “If you’re going to make the trip to a room for a lab, you want it be quick, work well and be highly organised. We’ve done a lot of work over the years to perfect the instructional design methodologies so learners get a compelling software and learning experience.”
This approach is especially beneficial when multiple product or solution updates are revealed at events such as Ignite.
“Often a company will make a keynote announcement and quickly deploy a product change in the cloud, which breaks all the labs due to be delivered the next day,” says Quinn Lamb, senior director of business development at Skillable. “It’s an overnight scramble to get them all fixed and working before the next sessions, but it’s something we excel at.”
When asked about the current most popular topics for labs, Lamb says: “Four words: AI Foundry and Copilot. Those are the biggest now, and Microsoft Fabric is not far behind. And then we have the labs that combine those topics, such as agentic AI in the Fabric suite.”
AI has not only been a major influence on the content of the labs, it has also impacted how they are delivered.
“The fundamental definition of a lab hasn’t changed, what has is the software that goes into it,” says Hynes. “The majority of topics are centred around AI, and luckily, we have a platform that is powerful enough to support it. We have a technology called Cloud Slice which allows us to package up all of Microsoft’s AI tools in one go and deliver them to 1,000 people at scale.”
There has also been a significant shift in the learning experience.
“It used to be all about the successful completion of an expected outcome,” says Lamb. “In this new world of AI, it’s more like a sandbox with some guide rails for the learner to play around and experience how to create something.
“Rather than define learning in procedures or score labs in challenges, we now get open-ended practice with these tools. We use things like visual scoring to interpret the user’s actions and determine if the users’ progress meets a more flexible set of requirements.”
This type of learning is especially significant in the modern world, where more traditional methods such as simulations, videos and documents have become less relevant.
“People in today’s world need access to real data, models and software for experimentation, and the only way you can do that is with hands-on learning,” explains Hynes.
This philosophy is influencing how Skillable plans to achieve its goal of redefining how people work.
“We are laser-focused on evolving the concept of a lab so that as technology evolves, we’re able to support and define it,” says Hynes. “The simple truth is that as we move forward and AI becomes more interactive, the entire learner-led learning model is going to change.
“We’re focused on examining how we can evolve instructional design and software deployment, and how we can expand what we do to meet the future needs of learners.”
Discover more insights like this in the Autumn 2025 issue of Technology Record. Don’t miss out – subscribe for free today and get future issues delivered straight to your inbox.