Ariba Chooses SumTotal Systems To Enhance Skills And Competencies For Its Worldwide Sales Force

Leading Provider of Spend Management Solutions Chose SumTotal for Scalability, Flexible Content Management, and Minimal Impact on IT Resources.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA (January 26, 2005) – SumTotal Systems (NASDAQ: SUMT), the industry’s largest provider of learning and business performance technologies, services and processes, today announced that Ariba, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARBA), the leading provider of Spend Management solutions, has chosen the SumTotal Enterprise Suite to enhance the skills and competencies of its global sales personnel. With SumTotal’s comprehensive learning management system and complementary modules, Ariba will assess and identify required skills for specific job roles within its worldwide sales and consulting organization. From that, the company will develop customized learning plans designed to increase productivity by using targeted training to enhance skills and competencies.

In early February, Ariba is expected to launch the platform to sales personnel worldwide. It will be hosted and managed by SumTotal. Ariba also plans to use the system to train other employees throughout the company and may eventually use it to train its customers. Ariba will also use TotalDashboard, SumTotal’s learning analytics system, to measure results from the program and to correlate them with business results.

“After extensive review, it was clear that SumTotal met not only our critical business needs, but also our IT needs, our project timelines, our budget guidelines, and other system requirements in one centralized Learning Management System,” said Kevin Costello, Ariba’s Chief Commercial Officer.

Ariba selected the SumTotal system because it provides valuable tools to help identify strengths in their commercial organization, as well as areas that require enhanced training. Ariba also required a system that would offer students a combination of instructor-led and online courses for a global audience and then track and report attendance. SumTotal offered a system that met those requirements while allowing 24X7 access to content. The SumTotal platform and hosted services allow rapid rollout for immediate results and have minimal impact on IT resources. The system can scale with customers’ growth, helping them serve a global audience.

“Ariba’s products and services are used by leading companies around the world who want more efficient spend management, and Ariba has become the market leader in that category,” said Andy Eckert, SumTotal CEO. “Market leaders like to work with market leaders. We are thrilled that Ariba selected SumTotal’s platform to help drive its sales productivity. Our products are increasingly being used for mission-critical, revenue improving initiatives, and Ariba’s vision of deploying our platform broadly within its organization for even greater productivity improvements is a testament to its forward-looking strategy.”

About Ariba

Ariba, Inc. is the leading provider of Spend Management solutions to help companies realize rapid and sustainable bottom line results. Successful companies around the world in every industry use Ariba Spend Management software and services. Ariba can be contacted in the U.S. at 1.650.390.1000 or at www.ariba.com.

About SumTotal Systems

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, AT&T, 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’ new product, SumTotal Enterprise Suite 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) unknown errors or bugs in SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.0; (ii) unexpected shipment problems or delays of SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.0; (iii) customers or partners delaying purchasing decisions; (iv) the acceptance of SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.0 and future product offerings; (v) the ability to successfully implement SumTotal System’s solutions; (vi) the ability to successfully address technological developments and standards; (vii) ability to successfully manage growth, significant current and expected additional competition, and the need to continue to expand product distribution and services offerings; and (viii) 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 November 15, 2004. SumTotal Systems assumes no obligation to update the information in this press release."