SAP dropped a whopping $3.4 billion on human capital management software company SuccessFactors back in December. Two months later, the deal has finally closed and SAP isn’t wasting any time in releasing a product roadmap for SuccessFactors now that the company is part of the SAP family.
As the New York Times reported back in December, SAP saw SuccessFactors as one entry point into the cloud. Forrester analyst Paul Hamerman told the publication at the time that “The cloud has been a small part of SAP’s revenue stream, about 2 percent; the deal adds to the revenue base and shows SAP’s strong commitment to the software-as-a-service business model.”
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In what is perhaps the most boring piece of tech news to come out of this week, German software giant SAP has today announced that it will buy the US-based SuccessFactors, a company that “helps organizations align strategy with objectives and manage people performance to ensure execution & results,” IN THE CLOUD, OF COURSE.
I think this means that it provides enterprise software for human resources, but you can never be too sure with these incredibly dull companies. I am too bored to Google it. In fact, I am literally bored to tears writing this, like I am actually crying here in my local coffee shop and everyone is looking at me weird and I just want to show them this press release so they’ll understand or something.
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On the heels of buying enterprise learning startup Jambok, the company has acquired another learning management software developer-Plateau Systems. SuccessFactors will pay $145 million in cash plus $145 million in stock for Plateau, for a total of $290 million.
Plateau Systems’ Learning Management Systems is generally usually used by Human Resources departments for the management and delivery of learning and training across organizations. Plateau Systems’s Talent Management Suite includes applications for learning management, performance management, career and succession planning and compensation management. → Read More
SuccessFactors has acquired Jambok, a SaaS social learning company founded by former Sun Chief Learning Officer Karie Willyerd and former Sun Chief Technology officer Charles Beckham. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Jambok’s SaaS enables companies and communities to share knowledge in the the cloud. Ideal for the “informal learning” (everything that’s not official training) part of corporate communications, the Jambok platform allows you to post video, audio, photos, as well as screen capture your desktop in order to share knowledge within your organization. Users can also rate, tag, and comment on content on both the web app and via mobile apps. → Read More
Cloud-based software company SuccessFactors has just announced a recent acquisition—Danish company YouCalc, which lets business create and share custom reports and analytics on data from the cloud. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Along with the acquisition, SuccessFactors is also debuting its Calculator In The Cloud platform, which leverages YouCalc’s technology. Now the company’s business users can analyze data from the cloud in realtime for insight and predictions. The platform can analyze data from SuccessFactor’s BizX Suite as well as data from third party cloud-based applications. The idea behind the new offering, says Brad Mattick, senior director of global product marketing financials for the company, is to allow business to aggregate and mashup data from a variety of sources for insight. For example, you can pull in data from an ERP system, sales metrics from a CRM system or customer satisfaction stats from call center software. → Read More
You know a company’s trying hard to promote a new version of its software when it puts together an acronym to describe it. SuccessFactors, provider of hosted enterprise software for “performance and talent management”, has opted for ULTRA: User Delight, Leading-Edge Innovation, Technology Agnostic, Results-Focused Capabilities, and Advanced Integration. I’m not entirely sure what those all mean, but the basic idea is that SuccessFactors has become even more “Web 2.0″ with its latest release, the 71st since its founding in 2001. Employees can use SuccessFactors to track their professional goals, and companies can use the software to conduct performance reviews and assess competencies. There’s a bunch of other capabilities built-in that help with recruiting and the distribution of stocks and bonuses as well. From the looks of things, SuccessFactors tries to do a lot of things at once. Not only does the software intend to help with employee management, it also serves as an employee directory and organizational mapping service. If I were an employee of a company that used SuccessFactors, I think I would actually find it much more useful for finding information about my colleagues than for charting developments in my career. But perhaps others are compelled to structure their goals explicitly and use it to determine whether they are competent enough to fill a new position. SuccessFactors went public just this past November. Analysis of the IPO can be found here and here. CrunchBase Information SuccessFactors Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
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