Brian Sommer
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Book Review – “Too BIG to IGNORE” by Phil Simon
Phil Simon is a book writing machine. This time last year I reviewed his “The Age of the Platform” and now he has another book out “Too BIG to IGNORE”. His latest effort has as its tagline “the business case for big data”. Phil’s very clear that this book is not oriented to the gear [...]
Ultimate Software goes global (and more)
This week, at Ultimate Software’s annual user conference, Ultimate CTO Adam Rogers announced major product capabilities and alliances. Global Payroll Ultimate has been content to be a provider of payroll and related solutions to U.S. based firms for years with expanded coverage to Canada in recent times. Global expansion, if it happened, would occur in [...]
Re-booting Infor in 2013
Infor essentially is the result of a lot of software acquisitions. Many names you remember in the application software space are part of Infor today. Companies like Baan, SSA, Lawson and many, many more. The accumulation of that many product lines, brands and applications has created a big maintenance revenue income stream for Infor but [...]
New JobVite products: Engage and Refer
Yesterday, I had a chance to talk again with Dan Finnigan, CEO of JobVite. JobVite’s been a pioneer in connecting social media, workers’ connections to other prospective workers, and, recruiters for years. Their core product defined how employers could tap into the social connections of workers to find more people just like the best and [...]
CEO Interview: Jason Blessing of Plex Software
I have written a number of times about Plex Software. They offer a cloud-based ERP solution that has sold quite well to manufacturers, especially those in the automotive industry. My initial interest in them was due to the size of their product offering (i.e., full ERP) and their multi-tenancy. Recently, the company has undertaken a [...]
Social business? Déjà’ vu all over again
IBM is transitioning. It’s got a $1 billion business with a software product called Lotus Notes but it is consciously trying to reposition it and other products around a social business mantra. To illustrate, one of the IBM communications executives pointed out to me that the “Lotusphere” part of the IBM Connect show logo is [...]
Common sense analytics – the analytics we need
Go to enough technology conferences and you’ll inevitably encounter the amazing motivational speaker. You know the one that climbed Mt. Everest on a unicycle while juggling four chainsaws. From this amazing story, you are supposed to extrapolate that you and your firm can do the similarly amazing things with the vendor’s software. There’s a lot [...]
Technical hires shouldn’t be the most difficult hires
In human resources, recruiting can be divided into two very distinct parts. One part involves shepherding candidates between interviews, collecting the combined opinions of the interviewers, and sometimes, create a possible job offer for the lucky jobseeker. The other part, the really hard part, is sourcing great candidates. Few HR organizations do the second part [...]
Oracle to buy Eloqua – the Broader Implications
Oracle announced its intention to purchase Eloqua for approximately $871 million (USD). Oracle, a purveyor of ERP application software, database software and computing hardware would acquire a firm that specializes in Marketing automation software. Eloqua traditionally competes with firms like Marketo, Pardot and others. From the experience of my firm’s clients, products in this space [...]
The life and times of HR application software (2012 in review)
Major Themes 2012 was an interesting one for Human Resources software. From Talent Management, Payroll, Analytics, HRMS and other niche HR solutions, there were a number of cool innovations, emerging trends and a lot of M&A with a side order of an IPO. Let’s review the big themes: You couldn’t swing a dead cat at [...]
