SumTotal Systems, the industry’s largest provider of learning and business performance technologies, services and processes, today announced that it will hold the first quarterly meeting of its newly-formed Customer Advisory Board (CAB) during the ASTD 2004 Conference and Expo, held from May 24 — May 27 in Washington, D.C.

The SumTotal Customer Advisory Board is made up of a group of the company’s largest enterprise customers from across the globe, spanning a wide variety of 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, Cingular Wireless, Wachovia, the US Army, GlaxoSmithKline and New Horizons.

During a day-long collaborative summit on Tuesday, May 25, the board will meet for the first time to share experiences and best practices in applying learning technology to impact organizational performance and profits. The agenda also includes a discussion of the development status of the SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.0, which the company plans to bring to market in the second half of 2004. The session will cover migration from existing platforms, ongoing support and service and customer satisfaction with the company’s technologies, services, processes and support. CAB members also will have an opportunity to offer feedback on the perceived strengths and weaknesses of SumTotal’s product strategy, as well as its marketing, sales and alliances efforts.

“As a customer success-driven company, it is critical that we take the opportunity to listen to the personal experience and professional insight of customers using our products every day to address very specific business and industry challenges,” said R. Andrew Eckert, SumTotal CEO. “We are pleased that so many organizations have dedicated their time to the Customer Advisory Board and we look forward to a fruitful discussion at our first meeting. I believe the CAB members will benefit significantly from an exchange with their peers in other organizations and other industries and I expect that we as a company will walk away with valuable, actionable feedback and a renewed sense of commitment to meeting our customers’ needs.”