SumTotal Systems, the industry’s largest provider of learning and business performance technologies, services and processes, today announced that it has closed an agreement with WebEx Communications, a provider of on-demand Web meeting applications, to integrate the WebEx Training Center application with SumTotal’s learning management system, TotalLMS. The partnership is designed to enable a new virtual classroom option offered in the SumTotal Enterprise Suite.

WebEx provides secure, fully integrated audio, video and web conferencing solutions that help learners and instructors connect and collaborate. The SumTotal-WebEx agreement enables mutual customers of the two companies to make live, synchronous Web training a compelling part of learning activities for their employees, customers and partners. The integration provides a quick and easy way to link SumTotal’s extensive learning management functionality with the WebEx Training Center application and WebEx’s global network, allowing creation, delivery, management and tracking of live learning events through a single access point.

“WebEx Training Center enables customers to efficiently reach geographically dispersed learners, significantly decrease cost and improve the productivity for training programs,” said Jeffrey Schmidt, vice president of international, channels and named accounts at WebEx Communications. “This relationship creates an integrated solution which will help our shared clients maximize effectiveness and reach of their learning programs.”

Following the integration, SumTotal’s TotalLMS will come with ready-to-use WebEx Training Center application, which enables organizations to: Create and manage WebEx training sessions through SumTotal’s platform Host WebEx sessions from SumTotal’s TotalLMS Ensure proper tracking of attendance, survey results and completion records for WebEx live training session attendeesConfigure separate WebEx sites per specific audience (i.e., customers, partners, employees)Set completion criteria for the sessionsTo help SumTotal customers evaluate whether this integrated solution is right for them, WebEx is offering a “try and buy” program. The program allows organizations to use WebEx Training Center free in conjunction with their SumTotal platforms before they decide to purchase the solution. For more information about the evaluation offer, visit: http://www.webex.com/sumtotal.

“SumTotal is committed to continually exploring new partnerships and new technologies to offer our customers the widest possible choice of solutions that address both their organizational learning needs and their business performance needs,” said R. Andrew Eckert, SumTotal CEO. “Our relationship with WebEx adds a powerful functionality to our offering that our customers can use to decrease expenses and cycle time, while delivering critical training to increase productivity, customer satisfaction, top-line revenues and bottom-line results.”