Strategic Management Group selects Centra Software's Symposium

Business Wire, May 20, 1997

LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 20, 1997--

Leading Business Skills Training Company To Use Symposium for the

Delivery of Live Interactive Learning and Real-time Collaboration

via the Internet

Centra Software, Inc., pioneering developers of the first Java enterprise application software for delivering live interactive group learning and real-time collaboration over the Internet and corporate intranets, today announced that Strategic Management Group (SMG) has purchased Symposium to deliver virtual corporate classrooms for their SMGnet Division.

A full-service management training solution provider, SMG delivers a foundation of experiential learning-based products and services that include learning events, computer-based simulations and interactive training. "Symposium is a very exciting product; one that supports SMGnet's vision of providing business skills training on corporate intranets to our client base of the world's leading corporations," said Michael Aronson, Managing Partner, SMGnet. "Symposium will allow SMGnet to take full advantage of the Internet to deliver interactive learning events and create a powerful, on-going learning process. We believe that our clients, which include Intel, Sun, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco, will be very interested in the results of our collaboration with Centra and their Java-based application software for live training."

Using Symposium Enhances Corporate Learning

Symposium will enable SMG to broaden their client base by providing them with the ability to deliver virtual seminars to a global audience. The company intends to offer their business and managerial skills simulations using Symposium. This will allow participants in SMG's simulations to be able to compete and collaborate with colleagues around the world in devising new marketing and sales strategies or fine-tune the management of a project.

In addition, SMG plans to use Symposium to conduct smaller "reunion seminars." Instead of flying participants cross-country or half-way around the world, companies can now turn to Symposium which uses the Internet to deliver the training event to clients' desktop and notebook computers.

"SMG is well-known for their innovative and cutting-edge implementation of technology in training applications. We are pleased they have selected Symposium as a key component to their clients* training environment," said Rick Cramer, Centra's vice president of sales and marketing.

Symposium Maximizes Existing Content and Curriculum

Symposium's content-neutral design allows corporations to leverage their investments in existing training content libraries and authoring tools. Symposium supports industry-standard multimedia formats including HTML, video, presentation slides, computer-based training (CBT) formats, and threaded discussion databases. For the first time, interactive multimedia content created with popular authoring products and traditionally delivered in self-paced formats, can be reused in Symposium's live group training environment.

Centra's powerful and easy-to-use Symposium Course Builder facilitates the rapid migration and sequencing of new and existing training media into the Symposium online learning environment. Symposium Course Builder assists with the preparation and assembly of training content and course structure for the online course syllabus. Centra's unique Choreography feature enables course creators and instructional designers to customize the structure and control of the online session, including microphone passing and whiteboard control.

About Centra

Centra Software, Inc. develops and markets innovative enterprise application software for delivering live interactive group learning and real-time collaboration over the Internet and corporate intranets. Funded by some of the top venture capital firms in the U.S., Centra helps Fortune 1000 organizations and others to greatly reduce training costs and improve organizational productivity by harnessing the Internet and any multimedia PC at home or at the office as a vehicle for live instructor-led training. For more information, please visit Centra on the Web at www.centra.com .

About Strategic Management Group

With headquarters in Philadelphia, Strategic Management Group, Inc. is an internationally recognized training and performance improvement company. Since 1981, SMG has specialized in the design, development and delivery of business skills seminars, computer-based simulations, stand-alone training products and application tools for Fortune 500 clients around the world.

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Note: Centra Software will be exhibiting at ASTD in Booth #1719. SMG will be exhibiting in Booth #544.

CONTACT: Heather McNatt

Alexander Communications

(404) 897-2300, ext. 348

hmcnatt@alexander-pr.com

or

Lisa Le Blanc

Centra Software,Inc.

(617) 861-7000, ext. 1013

lleblanc@centra.com