contact:
Brian McNamara
Hawthorne Associates
Phone: 617.489.4084
brian@hawthorneassociates.com

Check out the June, 2001 cover story of Online Learning Magazine featuring Avaltus

Vist the Avaltus Website:
www.avaltus.com

Other Avaltus Press Releases:

• New Book, Breakaway, Outlines Innovative Method to Speed Learning, 3/6/01 (by Avaltus CEO Charles Fred)

Payback Training Systems Becomes Avaltus, Inc. and Announces Breakthrough Courseware Conversion and Content Management Service

November 14, 2000

Salt Lake City, Utah--Avaltus, Inc. (www.avaltus.com), formerly Payback Training Systems, today launched its dynamic new business that converts large libraries of existing training materials to e-learning and then easily and economically updates and manages the converted content. Recognizing a void in the marketplace, Avaltus took the opportunity to develop a new courseware conversion and content management technology. Avaltus has focused on the huge untapped stockpile of proprietary training, in conventional formats, that businesses must either update or replace.

Its unique new software platform, Jupiter, enables Avaltus to convert existing training materials quickly to a highly interactive format that is usable on line; that can be customized easily; and, most important, that is ready for conversion to the next new medium.

"Avaltus focuses on the sweet spot of the training industry--the need to convert large libraries of legacy courseware for online delivery," said Charles Fred, President and CEO of Avaltus. "The most valuable training assets in the world economy are the existing specialized courses that companies use to preserve their essence and to build competitive advantage. This legacy training is a major part of the crown jewels of most businesses-as important as patents, brands, physical plant and key personnel."

To protect those training assets and upgrade to e-learning, companies must choose between replacement and conversion. And, whatever they choose, they worry that their new training will become obsolete in a few years and that they will be forced to repeat the expensive conversion process.

"Avaltus solves the conversion dilemma," said Fred. "We convert large libraries of existing courseware for Internet, LAN, WAN, or CD-ROM delivery. We perform the initial conversion at the speed of change, and the converted content is future-proofed. 'Future-proofing' means that it is easy to update and restructure the converted content and to apply new teaching logic and new user interfaces. It will also be easy to convert the content again to the next new technology or to deploy the courses in conjunction with a new learning management system. The Jupiter platform makes it easy to perform all manner of post-conversion content management-and to do so at the speed of change."

"Future-proofing," Fred observed, "reduces the fear that today's shiny new courseware will be tomorrow's white elephant. Jupiter eliminates the uncertainty that has made many companies tentative in their approach to e-learning."

"Avaltus is operating in an important and defensible niche," said Cushing Anderson of IDC, a leading technology analysis firm in Framingham, Massachusetts. "In particular, by making courseware much more flexible and portable, companies like Avaltus will accelerate the adoption of e-learning by clients as a critical part of their knowledge management function."

Precision Response Corporation (PRC), a leader in integrated customer care for both large corporations and high-growth Internet companies, has awarded a three-year, $5 million contract to Avaltus to convert, deploy, and manage its complete library of employee orientation training. David Epstein, President and CEO of PRC, a division of USA Networks Inc., said, "High quality training is critical to our success. We operate in a fast paced client driven environment and must provide a totally professional impression for our clients' customers. Our training must be efficient and effective. Avaltus' conversion and content management technology will allow us to move to an online delivery platform. By converting to online delivery, we are able to provide exactly the training our new employees need when they need it. Our resulting cost savings will enable us to fund the entire Avaltus conversion project and yet reduce our total training expenditures."

Other Avaltus clients include Chubb Computer Services, the National Restaurant Association, Hilton Hotels Corporation, Fleming Companies, Inc., Royal Ahold NV, Meineke Mufflers, and the US Department of Defense.

What sets Jupiter apart from other software is the ease with which companies with converted courseware may catalog, store, retrieve and reuse the objects, selecting different code elements in a-la-carte fashion to apply to the content and thereby deliver new and unique combinations of the content objects. Jupiter is a 100% Java-based e-learning content management engine. Jupiter-based courseware is interoperable with most commercial learning management systems via open standards, and all Jupiter e-learning content is stored via open XML.

Avaltus has offices in Cedar Knolls, New Jersey and Salt Lake City, Utah. It can be reached by telephone at 973-326-8989 or by e-mail at info@avaltus.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

Certain statements in this communication may be considered to be "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, such as statements that include words or phrases "will result", "is expected to", "will continue", "is anticipated", or similar expressions. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties.