SumTotal Unveils Enterprise Suite 7.2, Strengthens Tie Between Talent Management and Learning

Mountain View, Calif. – April 26, 2006 – SumTotal™ Systems (NASDAQ: SUMT), the largest provider of learning and business performance technologies and services, has released SumTotal Enterprise 7.2, which is the newest version of its award-winning enterprise software suite. “This release showcases the work we’ve been doing for the better part of a year, developing technology to manage talent across an employer’s enterprise,“ said Dave Crussell, SumTotal’s chief operating officer. “We believe employers from both the public and private sector will be able to drive real business results utilizing our new platform to manage talent, learning and performance across their workforces.”

SumTotal’s new platform is at the nexus of what Forrester Research says is the “hottest segment” of the burgeoning market for HR applications, the performance and talent management segment. In a January 2006 research report, Forrester noted that technologies for managing performance, talent and learning are among several strategic applications leading the growth of the $9-billion market for HR applications.

“We believe that, for employers, the purpose of learning is grooming and retaining a high-potential workforce that can quickly adapt to an ever-changing set of market forces,” said Jon Ciampi, vice president of marketing for SumTotal. “The technology that we think will help employers do this is an enterprise talent structure built on a platform that manages the lifecycle of employee performance, compensation and learning. Wrapped around these components is a system that manages content and knowledge. And encompassing it all is a single, unified interface. With the release of SumTotal 7.2, we have made significant progress toward achieving this vision.”

"As the role of learning continues to take on greater importance within the enterprise, companies are looking for a broader set of solutions from their learning providers,” said Peter C. McStravick, senior research analyst for Learning Services at IDC. “SumTotal's expanded suite of talent management products will allow HR and training executives to use a more integrated approach in their management of individual and organizational development needs."

Highlights of the expanded SumTotal suite are 1) an enhanced performance management module, 2) “activity versioning,” and 3) “exception reporting.” The TotalPerformance solution, which is SumTotal’s name for its performance management offering, gives employers a global view of their company and employees’ cascading goals and objectives. The TotalPerformance solution also manages the employee review process as well as a client’s succession planning.

With SumTotal 7.2, clients can smoothly follow the performance management process, integrating learning activities as part of a worker’s development plan. The SumTotal 7.2 platform also gives managers a way to spend less time writing appraisals and more time pinpointing how to bulk up an employee’s skills. And SumTotal 7.2 offers employees instant access to development plans with recommendations for the sort of learning that will help them meet their goals as well as their company’s overall aims.

The SumTotal 7.2 activity versioning module gives employers a way to update automatically any edition of a learning activity delivered to a workforce. “Essentially, what activity versioning does is help a customer manage the lifecycle of learning,” said Bill Docherty, senior director of product management for SumTotal. “With our versioning Wizard, we can show a client what version of a learning activity, or course, they’re looking at; employers can automatically manage the effective date of multiple versions of the same course, at the same time.” According to Docherty, the new platform also keeps tabs on who has taken a course, which version they took and what they learned.

According to SumTotal customer Toys ‘R’ Us, training had a different look and feel across its more than 280 stores because each location took care of its own education. With hundreds of locations delivering learning to tens of thousands of employees, making sure that each store had the latest version of data on an array of products was a challenge. Retailers are among a number of industries that should be able to use the activity versioning module in SumTotal 7.2 to streamline product announcements and roll outs, new-hire training and store openings.

The exception reporting in SumTotal 7.2 gives managers a dashboard view of which workers have not completed training on topics such as compliance. Employers can look at this data by individual or by groups. In fact, managers can use the exception reporting module to view the progress their direct reports are making on a particular set of compliance courses, whether individual or by a curriculum. According to a June 2005 research report from Gartner, “Deploying a business-class, e-learning program must be a top priority for any organization in a regulated industry that needs to track personnel compliance with critical processes.” SumTotal 7.2 takes this high-value component of any business-class solution to a new level.

Along with the new performance management module, activity versioning and exception reporting, SumTotal 7.2 also includes

• Datasheets that managers can use to identify employees with specific sets of skills


• A system for auditing database transactions


• A way to tag certain transactions with an electronic signature when users must identify themselves prior to completing business, and


• A SCORM 2004 player that can interpret navigation rules defined within an online course

”A core component of our strategy is to drive growth through product innovation across the learning market as well as the broader talent management market,” said Don Fowler, chief executive of SumTotal. “We believe SumTotal 7.2 will not only advance our vision but also increase the value of our customers’ business operations.”

About SumTotal Systems, Inc.

SumTotal Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUMT) is the largest provider of learning and business performance technologies and services. SumTotal deploys mission-critical solutions that align learning with organizational and business goals to generate significant bottom-line results. With more than 17 million users worldwide, SumTotal has helped accelerate performance and profits for more than 1,500 of the world’s best-known companies and government agencies including Accenture, Aetna, Cendant, DaimlerChrysler, Delta Air Lines, Harley-Davidson, Microsoft, Novartis, PNC Bank, U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Bancorp, United Airlines, Vodafone, Wachovia and Wyeth. SumTotal has offices throughout the United States, in London, Paris, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Hyderabad, India. For more information about SumTotal's products and services, visit www.sumtotalsystems.com.

Safe Harbor Statement/ Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements represent SumTotal Systems' expectations or beliefs concerning future events. 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 7.2; (ii) the inability to fix in a timely fashion unanticipated bugs, errors or defects that materially impact the functionality or usability of SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.2; (iii) the acceptance of SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.2 and future product offerings; (iv) the ability to successfully implement SumTotal Systems' solutions; (v) the ability to successfully address technological developments and standards; (vi) the ability to successfully manage growth, significant current and expected additional competition, and the need to continue to expand product distribution and services offerings; (vii) the growth of the business performance and learning management software market; 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 annual report for fiscal year 2005 on Form 10-K filed March 28, 2006, and Form 8-Ks.