Dear Workday, Citibank called!

Dear Workday, Citibank called. They want their logo back.





Dave Duffield's team launches Workday on Monday. Dave walked away with billions of dollars when Oracle acquired PeopleSoft. Since then, he and his team have been busy creating the 'next generation' of applications starting with HR (or HCM) using the On-demand model (Software-as-a-Service). Much will be written in coming days about Workday, so I will not review details of Workday and in stead point out the obvious about SaaS!

1. SaaS is here to stay: If you have been living under a rock, here is the news. SaaS will account for 25% of all new software revenue by 2011, according to Gartner.
2. Just do it: If you are looking to build a new software company, you don't have to solve a new business problem. Just re-implement any software (CRM, HR, Financials) using SOA to deliver it on-demand.
   
3. Build on SaaS: A lot of opportunities exist to build services that help customers use these SaaS applications- how do I integrate Salesforce with Workday? how do I get Oracle|Siebel On-demand contact data work with my Skype or Jajah applications? how do I consolidate and report across multiple applications without writing SQL queries because I can't? how do I provision and de-provision users?
   

Irrespective of individual successes or failures of Salesforce, Siebel On-Demand, Workday - 5 years from now, the game would have changed. This is no smaller a shift then that from Mainframes to Client-Server.