So I've been following Dave Duffield for a while now, but have not written about him in some time. For those of you who do not know of Dave, he's the founder of PeopleSoft and has launched a new venture. He also has an incredibly loyal following among other software CEO's, but I'll talk more about that in a minute.
Here's what's going on that I can tell:
- About 2 years ago, a couple of guys split from PeopleSoft to form a mid-market venture. The software they were producing would be an ASP ERP only. This company was called NetYourWork.com. NetYourWork.com is ready for release for Financials (mostly AP and Purchasing). From various sources, it seems that Dave may have seen the Oracle writing on the wall. He was already heading towards doing an ASP ERP as the future of PeopleSoft, but seeing a possible acquisition attempt, he may have wanted to keep this venture under his control. Therefore he spun it off.
- Dave announces "DavesNextMove.com" at IHRIM.
- DavesNextMove.com acquires NetYourWork.com
- DavesNextMove.com re-brands as WorkDay.com
- WorkDay.com is looking for a general release of initial software in Spring 2005. I think they will try and launch in Spring of 2006 at IHRIM. WorkDay will not have payroll in the first release. Some HR functionality should be available. However, the market will be primarily for financials first.
The business model will be Salesforce.com (CRM). They will start as a hosted (ASP) only to the small market (1000 to 5000 employees). However, as Salesforce has grown to some very large accounts, WorkDay will look to do the same.
I’m guessing that it will be about 5 years before WorkDay gets to that kind of market penetration. However, there are exPeopleSoft employees standing in line to go back to work for Dave.
Dave has an incredible network of software CEO’s that are committed to his success. He has an abundance of potential partnerships that he can use to hook up ancilliary software modules to WorkDay. Look for my next post when I’ll project what ERP’s look like in 5 years.
