SumTotal Systems has a new CEO

Congratulations to SumTotal for bringing in a new CEO. It was announced on Monday, and by the end of the day the stock picked up about $.026 and another $0.16 Tuesday to close at $4.60. SumTotal seems to have quietly been getting its act together, and while they have a long way to go, I think they have the company pointed in the right direction. Others think so too as Vista Equity Partners announced that they now own approximately 12% of the company. It seems they have been quietly accumulating shares over the last couple of months.

It still remains to be seen how successful they will be in truly moving toward an integrated HCM/Talent Suite, but at least the company has a lot of cash, and with their stock where it is, a good bit of room for upside.

The Learning/LMS segment of HCM/Talent Management has always been a bit of an enigma. The few public LMS companies have done terribly over the years, but the market still demands learning at a strong and steady pace, and investors put a good bit of new money in to Cornerstone and GeoLearning within the last year. As the global economy continues to slow, I am very curious to see how the LMS vendors will fare in the consolidating HCM/Talent market.