Sovereign Bank Selects SumTotal Systems to Build Enterprise-Wide Online Learning Portal

Regional banking leader to deliver regulatory compliance, M&A, customer service and other training to 9,500 employees throughout the Northeast

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA (November 23, 2004) – Building upon its expertise in meeting the unique needs of the financial services sector, SumTotal Systems (NASDAQ: SUMT), the industry’s largest provider of learning and business performance technologies, services and processes, today announced that Sovereign Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sovereign Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE: SOV), and pro forma one of the 18 largest financial institutions in the US, has chosen the SumTotal Enterprise Suite to drive the creation of an enterprise-wide learning program for 9,500 employees in more than 650 Community Banking Offices (CBOs) across the Northeast.

In preparation for deploying a learning solution, Sovereign formed a cross-functional Learning Council to establish a company-wide learning strategy and evaluate tools and technologies that would support the bank’s learning and business goals. Significant growth and acquisitions over the past few years had made monitoring employee compliance with training requirements increasingly complex for Sovereign. The bank needed a corporate-wide approach to simplify tracking and reporting, as well as a way to automate legacy tracking and reporting processes, procedures and technologies that had required significant manual administration.

After an intensive search, Sovereign chose the SumTotal Enterprise Suite, including TotalLMS and TotalLCMS, as well as the Information Management, Collaboration and Personalized Delivery modules, to create a centralized portal that employees can use to access learning activities regardless of their locations. According to Randy Reardon, the senior leader of Sovereign’s Learning Council and senior vice president of leadership and organizational development for Sovereign Bank, the SumTotal solution best addressed a set of key outcomes the group had identified as critical to the success of its e-learning initiative, including the ability to:

• Accurately track and report employee learning
• Generate higher ROI on learning resources
• Tie learning to job performance
• Offer equal opportunity for world-class learning to all team members
• Standardize learning delivery and curriculum

"From our very first interaction with SumTotal, our e-learning team was "wowed". It is obvious to us that SumTotal has taken the time to learn our business and target solutions to meet Sovereign's business needs,” said Randy Reardon. “SumTotal continually demonstrates that they are partnering with us to help us achieve our business objectives through their guidance and expertise."

One of Sovereign’s objectives is to ensure that all team members across the organization have access to the same high-quality, standardized information and learning activities. Sovereign will use a hosted version of the SumTotal Suite to power the learning portal, which will deliver compliance, mergers and acquisitions and new hire training, online job aids and other learning and business performance activities, while also providing the flexibility to deliver training to team members in alignment with each location’s specific needs.

Sovereign also will use TotalLCMS to meet the organization’s high demand for learning content. TotalLCMS will help the bank efficiently create and deploy instructionally sound learning content to Sovereign team members and to standardize delivery of e-learning projects by creating pre-approved course templates.

“In a highly competitive industry, what makes a financial services company successful is its ability to capitalize on new revenue opportunities, manage and track regulatory compliance and ensure customer confidence and satisfaction,” said R. Andrew Eckert, SumTotal CEO. “With targeted technology and services solutions, we have helped numerous financial services companies address these complex issues through increased organizational proficiency and accreditation. We are pleased to help Sovereign meet its training mandates and provide employees with the knowledge and skills they need to continue offering their customers the Red Carpet ServiceSM for which the bank is known.”

About Sovereign Bank

Sovereign Bancorp, Inc., ("Sovereign") (NYSE: SOV), is the parent company of Sovereign Bank, pro forma, a $60 billion financial institution with more than 650 community banking offices, over 1,000 ATMs and approximately 9,500 team members in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. In addition to full-service retail banking, Sovereign offers a broad array of financial services and products including business and corporate banking, cash management, capital markets, trust and wealth management and insurance. Pro forma for pending acquisitions, Sovereign is the 18th largest banking institution in the United States. For more information on Sovereign Bank, visit http://www.sovereignbank.com or call 1-877-SOV-BANK.

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, Cingular Wireless, US Army, Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard, Vodafone, Lucent, 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."