SumTotal Systems Highlights Training Fall Expo Appearance with Customer Results and Best Practices

United Airlines, Bechtel, TRW Automotive and others to share experience from implementing learning initiatives to address business challenges

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA (October 11, 2004) – SumTotal Systems (NASDAQ: SUMT), the industry’s largest provider of learning and business performance technologies, services and processes, today announced that a full slate of customer presentations will headline its appearance at the Training Fall 2004 Conference and Expo, held this year at San Francisco’s Moscone Center from October 11 – 13. Industry leaders United Airlines, Bechtel, TRW Automotive and others will host a variety of sessions on achieving business results with learning technology as part of the user “conference-within-a-conference” SumTotal Systems holds each year during the expo.

Practical lessons from SumTotal customers

Among the group of SumTotal customers presenting at Training Fall 2004, will be long-time SumTotal customer United Airlines, leading a session on compliance training on Monday, October 11 from 8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. The airline giant will share the comprehensive process it has created to increase both the efficiency and effectiveness of mandated compliance training. Presenter Jeff Presseau, program manager, workforce performance systems at United, will discuss the evolution of several curricula over the past decade, as well as how to partner with regulatory agencies and how to leverage learning technology investments to create better compliance and learning assessment programs.

Also on Monday, from 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., Bechtel, one of the world's premier engineering, construction, and project management companies, will discuss how it built Bechtel University to meet the logistical challenge of developing a skilled, global workforce capable of quickly responding to shifting markets and changing policies and regulations. Bechtel University operations manager Glenette Alston, will lead the “how-to” session, which will include best practices in implementing LMS technology to power a corporate university; course delivery methods and development software; course administration; and obtaining funding for learning initiatives.

On Wednesday, October 13 from 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m., Mark Dumar, project manager, Health, Safety & Environment Information Systems at TRW Automotive, a global manufacturer of automotive parts and systems, will present “If you Build It, They Will Come: A Grass Roots Approach to Implementing e-Learning With Minimal Funding and Support.” The session will explore the success of “bottom-up” e-learning implementation, including:

• How to defy the budget cuts and spark a thriving e-learning program for under $3,000
• How to make e-learning popular in an environment where most employees don’t even have a desk, much less a computer
• How to get internal customers to drive e-learning growth for the organization

Using learning to address business objectives

Reflecting SumTotal’s ongoing efforts to provide clients with solutions that solve real-world business problems, the company’s director of product management, Jon Ciampi, and senior director of product management, Bill Docherty, will offer a series of sessions on using learning technologies to accelerate organizational proficiency and to achieve specific business goals.

Ciampi will present a session on optimizing training and performance in the call center on Tuesday, October 12 from 9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m., during which he will discuss the challenge of improving call center agent performance when training time is limited. Ciampi will cover learning initiatives for improving call center customer service levels and performance, as well as how best to deliver learning to call center representatives while minimizing their time away from customers.

Ciampi also will deliver a session on Wednesday, October 13 from 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. on using learning to drive corporate initiatives. Using real world examples, he will lead participants in scrutinizing four common corporate initiatives – product training, call center training, customer training and channel training – breaking them down to their core components and processes, and discussing how successful companies have mapped their learning initiatives to their most vital business objectives.

Finally, Ciampi and Docherty will lead a talk on Wednesday, October 13 from 3:15 – 4:15 on using learning as an effective tool in launching new products, including decreasing time-to-market, readying sales, services and support teams and how to measure the results.

Content development shoot-out

In addition to its user group sessions at this year’s expo, SumTotal also will pit its ToolBook 2004 simulation and content authoring solution against other solutions in a product “shoot-out” scheduled for Wednesday, October 13 from 10:15 – 11:00 a.m. Sponsored by industry analyst firm brandon-hall.com and hosted by analyst Bryan Chapman, the shoot-out focuses on using PowerPoint in e-learning and requires participants to take an existing PowerPoint presentation and convert it live, in front of an audience, into a compelling e-learning course.

ToolBook helps organizations create compelling content and simulations that are a critical success factor in any organizational learning initiative. Using ToolBook’s powerful features, companies can create professional, standards-based simulations, tutorials, assessments, courseware and other interactive learning content without in-depth programming skills. Based on AICC and SCORM standards, ToolBook also makes it easy to launch and track ToolBook content through a standards-compliant learning management system (LMS).

SumTotal 7.0 Preview

In the SumTotal booth (#409), the company will be previewing features and functionalities of its upcoming SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.0, launching in Q4. Providing unparalleled breadth in application and depth in business functionality, the SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.0 will be the industry’s most comprehensive, scalable learning and business performance offering, and the only one to combine learning management, learning content management, virtual classroom and in-depth analytics applications on a single, integrated platform.

The SumTotal Enterprise Suite promises more flexible, rapid, strategic delivery and management of learning activities; unprecedented options for measuring learning impact on revenues, expenses, cycle time and other business results; and unique interoperability and integration capabilities that dramatically reduce the cost of ownership.

About SumTotal Systems, Inc.

SumTotal Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: SUMT) is the business performance and learning technology industry’s largest single provider of 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 has helped accelerate performance and profit for more than 600 of the world’s best-known companies and federal and local government agencies, including Microsoft, the US Army, Cingular Wireless, US Air Force, Vodafone, Lucent, USDA, DSHS, Accenture, Cendant, Harley-Davidson, Wyeth, Wachovia and D & B. SumTotal Systems is headquartered in Mountain View, CA, with offices throughout the US, as well as in London, Paris, Heidelberg, Sydney, Tokyo and Hyderabad, India.

Safe Harbor Statement/ Forward-Looking Statements

"Information in this press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements represent SumTotal Systems’ expectations or beliefs concerning future events and include statements, among others, regarding SumTotal Systems’ estimated development and shipment date for its new product, SumTotal 7.0. 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 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. Readers of this press release are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Additional factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to (i) SumTotal Systems' limited operating history, and Docent's and Click2learn's history of losses; (ii) delay in development or shipment of our new product, SumTotal 7.0, anticipated to be released during the fourth quarter of 2004; (iii) customers or partners delaying purchasing or upgrade decisions until our new product, SumTotal 7.0, is released; (iv) acceptance of SumTotal Systems' current and future product offerings; (v) long sales cycles for closing software contracts and seasonality in purchasing decisions; (vi) an emerging and rapidly evolving market; (vii) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (viii) continued market uncertainty with respect to the merger and the challenges of integrating Docent and Click2learn into one company, and the ability to achieve anticipated synergies associated with the recent merger; (ix) dependence on the growth of SumTotal Systems' market and fluctuation in customer spending; (x) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (xi) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees, and the risk of losing employees, especially sales personnel, if the SumTotal 7.0 release date slips; (xii) intense competition in the marketplace causing, among other things, pricing pressure; (xiii) failure to continually implement requisite internal controls and procedures; (xiv) increase of litigation and their related costs; (xv) other market conditions that include risks and uncertainties such as risks associated with financial, economic, political, terrorist activity and other uncertainties; and (xvi) other events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in SumTotal Systems' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the quarterly report filed on Form 10Q on August 12, 2004. SumTotal Systems assumes no obligation to update the information in this press release."