California State University, Long Beach Selects Centra to Provide Live, Instructor-led Virtual Classroom Capabilities.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 6, 2003

Centra-powered Program Augments Traditional Classroom and

Self-paced Learning Initiatives

Centra (NASDAQ: CTRA), a leading provider of application software and services for real-time enterprise collaboration (RTEC), today announced that University College and Extension Services (UCES) at California State University, Long Beach has selected Centra to provide virtual classroom capabilities that will complement its current classroom and distance education offerings. Centra-powered programs will give the university capability to deliver live, instructor-led classes direct to student desktops using fully integrated voice-over-IP technology.

California State University (CSU), Long Beach is part of a 23-campus, statewide system of comprehensive and polytechnic universities. The CSU system awards more than 1,800 bachelor's and master's degrees in more than 200 subject areas, employs 40,000 faculty and staff, and serves some 360,000 students. Many of these programs are offered so that students can complete all upper-division and graduate requirements by part-time, late afternoon, and evening study. In addition, a variety of teaching and school service credential programs are available.

UCES is one of the largest and most successful continuing education units in California. The college selected Centra to power its Web-based distance education program, allowing students to receive a rich learning experience from the convenience of their home or workplace desktops. System capabilities include integrated full-duplex audio, interactive whiteboards, advanced application sharing, breakout rooms, online surveys and evaluations, support for dynamic content and multimedia, and the ability to record sessions for editing and playback. Live, instructor-led sessions are delivered through distance learning and virtual classroom capabilities from Centra that enable offline completion of assignments between course sessions and more effective, convenient student and faculty collaboration from anywhere in the world. A beta test of the Centra implementation included online delivery of a non-credit course in grant writing. Ten students participated from their desktops across the United States. Their evaluations of the course and Centra's tools were extremely positive.

According to Mat Kaplan, senior director of Technology and Development for UCES, "Our eLearning application from Centra enhances our ability to reach, support, and dramatically grow our student population. We can now offer students, who would not otherwise be able to attend traditional classroom programs, a mix of live and self-paced courses that satisfy our blended approach to distance education."

Scalable Software Solution for Enterprise Collaboration

Centra's secure and scalable enterprise application provides collaboration solutions for sales, marketing, human resources, information technology, and other departments across the enterprise that need to take advantage of more efficient and cost-effective business communication over the Web. CentraOne(TM) brings together voice, video, data, and graphics in easy-to-use interfaces for Web conferencing, meetings, and virtual classrooms that can be deployed onsite or accessed through a secure ASP, leveraging Centra's global network of servers. Centra integrates with existing infrastructure to help organizations align enterprise IT strategies with key business processes to enhance productivity, lower costs, and drive revenue. Centra's solutions are available in 13 language editions and in 29 countries worldwide.

"Centra is honored to play a role in this well conceived distance education program," said Leon Navickas, Centra's founder and CEO. "It is our hope that Centra's expertise will help UCES and CSU, Long Beach achieve their goal of developing state-of-the-art programs that meet the needs of students and faculty."

About Centra

Centra offers enterprise applications software that enables organizations to shift their group-oriented business activities to the Internet or their internal network. Leading with an undisputed track record of helping more than 1,100 global corporations, government agencies, and universities increase revenue and improve overall business performance, Centra offers a family of integrated real-time enterprise collaboration (RTEC) application software solutions and services to over 3.2 million licensed users. Customers drive greater productivity and lower their costs using Centra's solutions for collaborative eLearning, online sales and marketing, Web-based service and support, and other interactive, people-centric internal and customer-facing work. The applications can be deployed as on-premise software or through our ASP service, are available in 13 languages, and are supported by an active ecosystem of value-added partners, including Microsoft, Oracle, Siebel, Deloitte Consulting, EDS, and Cisco. Today, organizations across every function, industry, and market sector choose Centra, including Cadbury Schweppes, McKesson, Sysco, Viacom, and Stanford University. Headquartered in Boston, Centra serves a worldwide customer base throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. For more information, visit http://www.centra.com.