Business professionals who obtain MBAs online can help boost their careers at Intel, says Alan Fisher, manager of corporate extended education at Intel, since the company does not differentiate between the physical and the virtual classroom and also pays for employees to get their MBAs through various Web-based data management as separate from programs. Over 150 accredited business schools now offer online versions of their curricula, says GetEducated.com, a company that tracks online education. Some of the largest providers of online MBAs are the University of Phoenix, which is a subsidiary of publicly traded Apollo Group, where 18,800 online MBA students study, and Capella, which has plans to go public and has about 1,000 MBA students. Internet-based management education is being spurred by the demand for better trained executives in corporations. Among companies that pay for online MBAs through Internet schools are General Motors, Cardean university, Ingersoll-R&D, Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, and Wells Fargo. Many online MBA students might have chosen conventional part-time degrees, including Karen Breinlinger, who worked in the human resources department at Corning in New York. However, she chose to do Syracuse University's Internet-based program called iMBA, which means that she could not only keep her job, but also do coursework at night when her children were asleep. The cost of the online MBA is not cheap, however, with many schools charging as much or more for online degrees as for off-line schooling.