Having proved its mettle in the space of Learning Management System, SumTotal Systems is in the process of making a fresh addition to its armory with an entry into the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) space.
Next year would see the Mountain View-based company release its first module of SOA.
S Venkataraman, director, Professional Services and Engineering, elaborated on the company's plans: "Towards the next year, one of our plan is to get into the SOA space. The vision is to make the product embedded into other products," said Venkataraman.
"It is in the planning phase. The planning started a quarter ago. Our core architecture team is working on it. They are going to decide on the entire strategy. But definitely the plan is to have it in place in the next year."
As has been the normal practice, the company's R&D teams in the US and Hyderabad would work in tandem on the proposed SOA. SumTotal has close to 80 professionals working in its R&D wing in Hyderabad. "Our R&D team was always designed to be part here and part there," reasons Venkataraman.
But before SOA takes shape, the immediate arena where SumTotal wants to make headway is the in the arena of Performance and Talent management.
"We are getting into these market segments. We know that this market will expand," confirmed Sudheer Koneru, managing director, India. "There is already an organic growth around our base product and when we enter the market with a new product we expect that to help us accelerate our growth," added Koneru.
He considers the performance management slightly matured than the talent management. "We are enhancing our product scope. We are going with a more robust and detailed solution. That's a niche area to get into. We are on track to become the leader in that space," said Venkataraman.
According to Venkataraman, SumTotal already has two-three customers on board who are already using its performance management solutions.
Even as the latest version of its SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.2 has made found rapid acceptance, plans are afoot to come out with further releases of the company's core product. The Learning Management System provider is preparing to roll out SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.5 in December. The 7.5 version would have a full-fledged e-commerce module that would help to train the partners of SumTotal's customers. The company also expects the 7.6 version to come up in mid next year.
SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.2 has got modules related to auditing, total versioning and total performance added from the previous version.
The firm is also planning to increase its focus on the Asia Pacific region.
"From a regional perspective, we get very little revenue from ASPAC. This is mostly because we never invested heavily in the region. We have been focusing on the US and Europe markets. These have been large markets where the large deals are done. We have been good there. Now ASPAC is a big area of focus for us in the next two years. We want to really catch up and get the right amount of revenue. So we are adding more people across Asia Pacific," explains Koneru.
"Earlier the market was also not mature," said Ankur Gupta, senior manager, Marketing on the Asia-Pacific region.
Sales outside of the U.S. accounted for 25 per cent of total sales in 2005. In India, SumTotal has customers like Patni, Polaris, Satyam and ICICI. The $100 million company has mapped a strategy to reach revenues of $ 500 million by 2010.
On the Indian operation, Koneru points that the company would grow more on the revenue side than on the headcount front. "It's not going to cross 400 in the near future. We are targeting close to 400 professionals," informed Koneru.
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