SumTotal Systems Unveils SumTotal Enterprise Suite™

Based on Industry’s Most Widely Used LMS and LCMS Applications, Unified Release Creates Industry’s Most Complete Suite, Richest Functionality, Highest Level of Support for Standards, and Overall Lowest Cost of Ownership

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 22, 2004 – SumTotal Systems™ Inc. (NASDAQ:SUMT), the business performance and learning technology industry's largest single provider of technologies, processes and services, today unveiled its plans for the SumTotal Enterprise Suite, the integration of the leading learning and performance suites of Docent and Click2learn.

With customer input as its guiding force, SumTotal Systems is moving swiftly to combine the best functionality of both industry-leading suites, with a strong emphasis on supporting all industry standards and open integration. The SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.0 will be delivered to the market in the second-half of 2004 and bring the market unparalleled breadth in applications, and unparalleled depth in business functionality. Based on the industry’s most widely used LMS and LCMS applications today, the suite will include the following, distinct modules and capabilities:

• TotalLMS™ - for strategic management of training, corporate information, communication, and employee knowledge


• TotalDashboard™ – for detailed analysis of organization-wide learning data and bottom-line impact


• TotalLCMS™ - for creating, managing and deploying web-based training and simulations


• TotalVCS™ - for live, virtual communication, collaboration and learning over the Web


• TotalPerformance™ - for 360-degree measurement of employee performance, and to ensure alignment of individuals and groups at all levels of the organization


• TotalAccess™ - for comprehensive mobile access to learning, information, and content without network connection


• TotalInformation™ - for management of formal and informal knowledge and information


• TotalCollaboration™ - for collaboration and facilitation of knowledge-sharing with subject matter experts

Additionally, SumTotal Systems will provide the following complementary solutions in order to help its customers truly achieve their desired business results:

• ResultsOnDemand™ - for immediate-term, turn-key business solutions, an ASP offering with the same rich functionality as internal deployments


• ToolBook 2004™ - for robust content authoring and simulation

“All of these applications represent best-of-breed products in their own right, and when brought together in a single suite, create an unmatched combination that helps customers drive real performance across their value chain,” said Andy Eckert, SumTotal’s CEO. “The SumTotal Enterprise Suite will be delivered on a single, integrated platform, providing ease of use and lowering our customers’ total cost of ownership. For users, it provides for a single login, and a simple, intuitive experience across the entire suite; for administrators, it provides for centralized user and data management across all applications; and for IT, it offers low risk and low cost in implementation and support. The application suite will also add innovative capabilities and workflows that focus on industry and business-specific solutions, ensuring the ability of SumTotal to bring customers true business outcomes – not just features and technology.”

“Today, the strengths of the two existing suites from Docent and Click2learn are highly complementary,” said Sanjay Dholakia, SVP of Marketing and Alliances. “Aspen has been lauded in the market for its modular design, clean UI, and underlying architectural integration, while Docent has been lauded for its leading functional workflow and business capabilities. These facts have been recognized by many experts in the field, and the companies have received several technology awards as a result. What’s not widely known in the market, however, is that both have very similar technology architectures and scalability characteristics. This similarity in architecture has led to common, standard deployments in the customer bases. With nearly 20 global deployments larger than 50,000 active users today, and nearly 100 deployments larger than 10,000 users, our team has the industry’s deepest understanding of enterprise-wide deployments, and how to scale our technology for some of the world’s best known companies.”

“The understanding that this team has of customer needs is hard to replicate,” said Srinivas Chandrasekar, SVP of Products for SumTotal Systems. “The amount of detailed work that has already gone into planning this release is remarkable. Given the nearly 5 man years of integration planning and work already behind us, the fact that we are already demonstrating web services support for J2EE and .NET applications, the complementary strengths, and the similarity of architectures, I am very excited about our delivery of SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.0.”

Planning Effort, Process, and Validation

Shortly after the merger agreement was signed, Click2learn and Docent established an “Integration Taskforce” in which engineers and others from the two companies could plan and test key aspects of the product integration. In all, the team, which consisted of senior managers, product managers, marketing managers, engineers, customer account managers, professional services consultants, and third-party contributors, spent nearly 5 man-years on the product integration roadmap, working diligently on designing a technology platform that leverages the strengths of the industry leading products of both companies.

This team began the process by consulting with a broad audience consisting of current & future customers, industry analysts and enterprise software companies to solicit input and gather feedback on long-term product plans. Additionally, the team incorporated guidance from a technology oversight committee made up of members of each company’s board of directors, including Ali Kutay—former CEO of Weblogic—and Vijay Vashee—a Microsoft veteran responsible for helping to launch core applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Project. The process, in its totality, was focused on working with leading organizations to help them achieve their business performance goals going forward.

“As the fourth-largest banking company in the United States -- providing financial services to retail banking, brokerage and corporate customers -- Wachovia needs high-quality employee training that is delivered rapidly,” said Lisa Gary, Vice President of Learning Management Services for Wachovia Corporation. “Whether it’s focused on products, sales, systems or compliance, the training also must thoroughly prepare employees so they can drive business results and serve our customers well. The SumTotal solution helps us accomplish both goals. It is unique because of its approach to training and its commitment to customer satisfaction. We expect the SumTotal Solution to continue as an important part of our learning environment as Wachovia strives to become the best, most trusted and admired financial services company.”

The company expects detailed beta testing of SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.0 to begin with customers in the second quarter.

Technology and Integration

The SumTotal Enterprise suite will deliver an open, standards-based architecture that truly maximizes support for common industry standards and provide seamless interoperability within customer environments. Whether it is J2EE, .NET, or new environments like SAP’s just-announced NetWeaver, SumTotal Systems plans to provide a new, industry-leading Integration Framework, along with robust web services, that ensure the lowest cost of ownership through support for all environments.

Specifically, the suite will support industry standards at all levels:

• User Interface – entirely browser based, supporting today’s common web browsers


• Application layer – application server support for IIS and Windows 2000/2003


• Database layer – platform support for Oracle, SQLServer, Solaris, Windows, and other standard platforms


• Content integration – support for SCORM and AICC


• Performance – support for 100,000 users with less than .5 second response time for less than $20,000 in hardware

This support for industry standards, coupled with the new Integration Framework, allows SumTotal Systems to provide the highest levels of interoperability and integration within customer environments. The suite will seamlessly enable common integrations, such as:

• Enterprise System Integrations – PeopleSoft, Siebel, SAP, Oracle, and others


• Enterprise Portal Integrations – SAP, Plumtree, Vignette, and others


• Authentication Integrations – LDAP, Microsoft Active Directory, Passport, and others

Furthermore, the Integration Framework will support a variety of integration methods, allowing customers to maintain their applications and their environments at the lowest cost. These methods will include:

• Web services – J2EE, .NET, and other emerging platforms


• XML data synchronization interface


• Open APIs


• Built-in support – Centra, WebEx, Interwise, NETg Content Server, and others

Upgrades and Migration

Upgrade paths for customers of the existing, best-of-breed suites will also be available. With a proven track record of more than 80% of the customer base on the latest version of the Docent and Aspen product, SumTotal Systems expects a smooth upgrade process for those customers wishing to take advantage of the new features and functionality in the 7.0 suite.

“Upon detailed analysis of the combined installed bases, we found that the vast majority of customers had deployed the suites in much the same way,” said Chandrasekar. “As an example, given the similar architectures, and given the cost/performance ratios, the vast majority of the installed bases chose to deploy the application layer on Microsoft servers, while deploying the database on Oracle or SQLServer, on both Solaris and Windows servers. This will allow SumTotal Systems to provide customers with migration paths that minimize impact and cost to their businesses, while retaining all functionality and capability for both installed bases. We expect detailed beta testing of the migration process to begin with customers in the second quarter.”

Finally, and importantly, given the company’s cost structure advantage in development and support, SumTotal will be providing support for existing customers, on their existing suites, for several years with no forced migration. To accent this commitment, SumTotal will be extending the support of current Docent customers with 6.0 or later, and Click2learn customers with Aspen 2.0 or later, until 2007.

“SumTotal, as a combined entity, is deeply committed to the success of our customers” said Andy Eckert, CEO of SumTotal Systems, Inc. “Over the past five months, we devoted a tremendous amount of time and effort to listening to their needs---both, current and future. With our customers’ support and validation, we are confident that we will continue to deliver against their requirements---and beyond. We are very excited about the promise of truly helping customers accelerate their performance and their profits.”

The product integration roadmap plan is the most current plan for integrating the company’s product lines and may be refined, updated, or revised from time to time, based on customer input and market conditions.

About SumTotal Systems, Inc.

SumTotal Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: SUMT) is the industry's largest single provider of business performance and learning technologies, processes and services. Formed by the merger of industry pioneers Docent and Click2learn, the company is uniquely focused on helping organizations harness and manage mission-critical intellectual power to solve real-world business problems and produce significant bottom-line results. SumTotal Systems has helped accelerate performance and profit for more than 600 of the world's best-known companies, including Microsoft, Cingular Wireless, Vodafone, Lucent, Accenture, Cendant, Harley-Davidson, Wyeth, Wachovia and D & B. SumTotal Systems is headquartered in Mt. View, CA, with offices throughout the US, as well as London, Paris, Heidelberg, Sydney, Tokyo and Hyderabad, India.

Safe Harbor Statement / Forward-Looking Statements
Information in this press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements about future business operations, financial performance, customer benefits and potential synergies to be derived from the transaction and other market conditions that include risks and uncertainties. These statements are not historical facts or guarantees of future performance or events and are based on current expectations, estimates, beliefs, assumptions, goals and objectives, and neither Docent nor Click2learn assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future results and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from the results expressed or implied by these statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to, (i) the challenges and costs of closing, integration and restructuring and the ability to achieve anticipated synergies associated with the announced plans to merge Docent and Click2learn; (ii) an emerging and rapidly evolving market, (iii) market uncertainty with respect to the proposed merger and acceptance of the combined company's product offerings by customers and partners; (iv) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (v) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (vi) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (vii) intense competition in the marketplace and (viii) other events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in Docent's and Click2learn's with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the companies' respective 10-K and 10-Q filings.