Why Cloud Computing is Accelerating in the Enterprise
Translating time into dollars matters far more to many CEOs I’ve spoken with versus what platform their applications are running on. What matters most is getting all they can out of every hour their business is operating. They are all focused on getting beyond the constraints that held their growth back in the past – [...]
Lots of new functionality/little elapsed time: Workday and Adaptive Planning updates
Workday and Adaptive Planning Updates For those of you defending cloud application solutions (against the on-premises fan-boys), here’s another bullet for your ammo belt: Speed. When a multi-tenant cloud vendor only has to support and regression test one version of the software, rolling out new releases is expedited. When the products are built on a [...]
People first: Cloud HRM and talent management
In 1951, the world’s first business computer was switched on at the London headquarters of J Lyons & Co, a food and catering giant that, with its chain of popular tea shops, had been the Starbucks of wartime Britain. Named LEO (for Lyons Electronic Office), its main role was processing payroll and inventory. Around the [...]
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 [...]
Why the mid-market is the mother-in-law of outsourcing
When is comes to outsourcing, dealing with the middle-market has been somewhat akin to dealing with the mother-in-law: can be awkward to deal with, very hard to please, and always has complex demands on your patience and resources.
You Really Don’t Know if Your Market is Too Small For Quite a While
One of the things that causes a lot of anxiety in SaaS is market size. If you’re creating the latest Pinning app, or Social Network, the odds are surely against you. But in consumer internet, often you know if you hit it, however low the odds are, at least the market is huge (or at [...]
ERP, RIP? Cloud financials and revenue management in 2013
What’s the future for ERP in the cloud, if it has one at all? I heard a disarming admission last summer from the CEO of a company that aggressively markets itself as “the #1 cloud ERP software suite.” NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson told a gathering of industry analysts at the company’s SuiteWorld 2012 conference that [...]
Enterprise Headlines and Highlights, 2013-01-04
Highlights from the world of Enterprise Software and Solutions over the past two months (or so): Salesforce.com had a strong Q3. NetSuite had a strong Q3. HP did not. Workday had its IPO. It’s doing well, with a market cap just over $8.5 billion and a constrant stream of innovation. Lots of IT failures recently, [...]
2012 Was Workday’s Year; Who Will Own 2013 In HR Technology?
And the winner is? [Shout-out to my colleague Lisa Rowan at IDC. Her recent guest post was the impetus for my finishing this post, which I had started right after Workday went public on 10-12-2012.] 1987: Bloom & Wallace and PeopleSoft Founded 1987 was a big year in the history of HR technology. That’s the [...]
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 [...]
