
Looking Forward to DreamForce 2012
The annual Salesforce extravaganza DreamForce is just around the corner (disclosure, I’ll be attending DreamForce and Salesforce will be covering my T&E account) and with it comes my annual look forward and prediction of what is to come. For reference check out my previous prediction posts here and here. This

FinancialForce 2012 Release–Delivering a Loosely Coupled Set of Solutions
Nicely timed to coincide with next week’s DreamForce conference comes the summer 2012 release from FinancialForce, the cloud accounting company that is both part owned by Salesforce, and built upon the force.com platform. While product announcements tend to be a little ho-hum, this one is interesting since it comes from

Why Cloud ERP? Cutesy Video
The cutesy video above was created by SAP, the first part talking about the benefits of Cloud ERP, the integrated approach in general, and while the last minute turns into a SAP Business ByDesign pitch, it could very well be viewed as overall industry promotion, applicable to archrival NetSuite, and to some extent Workday, and […]

Why Workday Is Different by Design, and Why It Matters
We use the object model to define both the structure of our applications (classes, relationships, and attributes) as well as the logic of our applications (methods). All parts of the object model are defined as metadata. Instead of the thousands of relational tables and millions of lines of code used to define traditional enterprise software, Workday applications consist of millions of metadata definitions

SAP Assembles Cloud Powerhouse with Ariba, SuccesFactors Acquisitions
Emphasis on “assemble”, as opposed to develop. For years SAP and Oracle fought a religious war of acquire/assemble vs develop in-house. SAP’s view was (even under the current Co-CEOs) that you can only get to a coherent, seamlessly integrated suite by development. Apparently they have changed religion, borrowing a chapter or two from Larry Ellison’s […]

Zuora Partners With a Host of Mid Market Financial Vendors
In my extensive writing around the subscription billing space, I have often noted that it is a very polarized sector of our industry with a handful of well funded companies providing services for large organizations – Zuora, Vindicia and Aria fit in this space. These companies are maneuvering for position

The Future of (SAP) HCM Consulting and SuccessFactors – 2012
SAP recently released their first public product roadmap on their acquisition of SuccessFactors and I provided my initial thoughts in an article titled SAP and SuccessFactors Roadmap Analysis. A lot of people have reached out to me worried about the future and trying to understand what this means to the overall SAP consulting market. In an attempt […]

SAP and SuccessFactors Roadmap Analysis
SAP issued the following press release this morning: SAP and SuccessFactors Accelerate Unified Product Direction which covered their product direction across core HR, Talent Management, HCM Analytics and Integration and I thought I would outline my initial thoughts on each of the main points. Product Direction Across Core HR, Talent Management, HCM Analytics SuccessFactors Employee Central solution […]

Oracle Acquires Taleo (Resistance is Futile)
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, I am not sure, but this is what happens when I don’t have time to write:-) If you are in Enterprise Software, you know what’s coming at you … resistance is futile. Now, for the real news on Oracle’s acquisition of Taleo, I refer […]

Position Paper: Five Attributes Of Enterprise Cloud Applications
Abstract: In this position paper, we define the five core attributes of a modern enterprise cloud application which includes Simplicity, Cloud Scale Architecture, Open APIs, Mobile Platform Support and Social Awareness. We expect this definition to help organizations differentiate between a true cloud application from a cloud-washed application. Such an understanding will help enterprises to […]

Year End Trends In Enterprise Software: HCM Is Hot And Integrated Suites
As the year 2011 is winding down, I am seeing few trends in enterprise software which might generate quite a bit of discussion among the pundits next year. I thought I will do a quick post on it and see if I can get some feedback from industry watchers and practitioners. As the traditional software […]

SAP and SuccessFactors Acquisition Q&A
This Saturday SAP announced its $3.4B acquisition of SuccessFactors and even though in the recent months they had dropped some hints they were looking to make an acquisition very few had SuccessFactors being the likely candidate. I would expect a lot more information and clarity to come out in the coming months but thought I […]

Workday Flash Mob @ HR Tech
Chinese Wall. Separation of State and Church. You know the drill. No mingling of author content and Sponsor posts. (Hint: that’s what the scrolling side widget is for.) Except when they are too funny to miss. Like Workday, with their Flash Mob Lunch during the HR Tech Conference. Enjoy. 🙂

DreamForce 2011–A Look Back
Having just returned from my trip to the US for DreamForce, I’ve had a bit of time to reflect on the news (see here and here) from the event. I wanted to write up post that takes a more thoughtful look at what was, and was not, announced, and what this means for the longer […]

Force.com and Chatter Score a Coup – Hook Workday
Update – Both Infor and Concur announced similar deals – details to come. Update #2 – I spent time with Workday during the event to get a deeper understanding of what the force.com part of this deal actually means. Essentially Workday will use force.com for customers who wish to make advanced customizations on their Workday […]