SumTotal Systems Brings Enterprise Learning and Business Performance Best Practices to TechLearn 2004

Gold sponsor of event to host day-long slate of sessions, including panel featuring Johnson & Johnson, Dun & Bradstreet, NCR, Symbol Technologies, Wachovia and SkillSoft

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA (November 12, 2004) – As a Gold Sponsor of this year’s TechLearn Conference in New York City from November 14 - 17, SumTotal Systems (NASDAQ: SUMT), the industry’s largest provider of learning and business performance technologies, services and processes, will kick off its annual appearance at the show, with a day-long program of sessions on corporate learning and business performance best practices.

The schedule of presentations, which runs from 9:45 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Monday, November 15, will be highlighted by a panel discussion on integrated learning technologies, held from 2:45 – 3:45 p.m. and hosted by Josh Bersin, leading industry analyst and president of Bersin and Associates. The panel features SumTotal customers Johnson & Johnson, Dun & Bradstreet, NCR, Symbol Technologies, Wachovia, as well as product specialists from SumTotal and SumTotal partner SkillSoft. Discussion will focus on the technical and business implications of integrating learning technologies such as CD-based applications and externally and internally hosted content, with learning management systems. This session will be recorded and made available as a webcast after the conference. Please visit www.sumtotalsystems.com/events for details on how to access the recording.

Other sessions, presented by learning and technology experts from SumTotal and its customers, include:

• "Leading Edge: The Top Ten Learning Innovations,” held from 9:45 - 10:45 a.m. and hosted by Jon Ciampi, director of product management at SumTotal and Francisco Soeltl, president of SumTotal partner MicroPower. Ciampi and Soeltl will review the latest innovative uses of learning technology that deliver bottom-line results, including specific, real-world implementations and technology uses. Examples will detail organizations that have pushed the boundaries of organizational learning to deliver unique benefits and value.


• "Optimizing Training and Performance in the Call Center,” held from 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. In this session, Ciampi, along with Jim Everidge, president and CEO of SumTotal partner Rapid Learning Deployment, LLC, will discuss the challenge of improving call center agent performance when training time is limited. Ciampi also 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.


• “An Integrated And Blended Training Approach To Product Launches,” held from 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. Ciampi will join with a major retail customer to outline how to use learning as an effective tool in launching new products, including aligning the learning process with business objectives for the launch, decreasing time-to-market, readying partners, sales associates and services and support teams, and how to measure the results.

In addition to its presentations, SumTotal also will showcase its industry-leading learning and business performance solutions -- including a preview of its soon-to-be-launched SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.0 -- at its booth (#203) throughout the three days of the show.

Also in conjunction with TechLearn, SumTotal will convene a gathering of its Customer Advisory Board (CAB), made up of many of the company’s largest enterprise customers from a wide variety of global geographies and industry sectors. SumTotal formed the CAB as a forum for customers to interact with each other around common business and industry challenges and to give the company valuable feedback it will use to ensure that its products, services and processes target those challenges. CAB members include such industry and government leaders as United Airlines, Microsoft, Albertson’s, Wyeth, Cendant, Wachovia, the US Army, GlaxoSmithKline and New Horizons.


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, US Air Force, Vodafone, Lucent, USDA, DSHS, Accenture, Cendant, Cingular Wireless, 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."