Workday IPO – First Impressions


So the much anticipated IPO of Workday is here. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1327811/000119312512375787/d385110ds1.htm#toc385110_13  . Pretty detailed S-1 too. I just flipped through it and also read Dennis Howlett’s blog on it on ZDNET.

The best part of this is that the founders have a long term plan to keep control of the company, and virtually eliminate chances of a hostile take over. I wonder if this will get punished by market or not – probably it will, just for the short term. Customers should like this arrangement – so in long term this should work in company’s favor.

No surprises on revenue – and excellent growth rate. And while COGS is high, it is not that bad given they are young and need to invest in getting big client names, product development, marketing and so on. That will generally stabilize in future and make the company more profitable.

It is interesting to note in the S-1 that “…most of our non-cancellable contract terms have averaged four years“. I fully understand the reason to do this. I just wish some cloud pundits stop saying SaaS companies somehow always do “pay by drink” and “no lock-in like legacy vendors” .  There is plenty of lock-in for SaaS players, and I never really understood why some pundits try to portray otherwise. Customers are not stupid – they know how economics work for vendors, and they factor it into buying decisions.

Mr McNamara , CEO of Flextronics is a Director for the company, and has stock in the company. Flextronics is a big name customer of the company too. I really like Workday’s strategy of getting some skin in the game from customers, and industry leaders. Interestingly, SaaS pundits don’t always mention this relationship of Workday and Flextronics when they highlight “Flextronics chose Workday” .

There is not a lot of presence outside US from revenue perspective. It is not a big deal since there are plenty of customers to go after in US itself for next few years. But they do need to expand in short order to remain viable for global companies. Workday is still kind of a one trick Pony with just HR as their game since very few customers have used them for Financials. For them to be a credible threat to ORCL and SAP and so on, they have long ways to go. R&D should stay high for many years while they develop all the functionality depth and breadth.

S-1 says it takes 3 to 9 months for an implementation. Dennis Howlett characterizes it as “incredibly fast” in his excellent blog. http://www.zdnet.com/understanding-workdays-ipo-filing-7000003569/ . I am not sure  if this is a completely fair characterization since the 12 to 18 months of on-premises SW typically has multiple modules of functionality unlike what Workday offers today.  Since Dennis definitely knows cloud and Workday more than I do, I assume he had more in mind when he wrote this.

All things considered, I think Workday is a fantastic company with a bright future. Good luck to them on their IPO.

 

Added : https://plus.google.com/118281770914088081017/posts/b8fJR6w71Yq  excellent summary in bullets from Jarret P

Still In Doubt About BW on HANA ? Ask Steve Lucas and Vijay in Global Webinar on September 5th, 2012


From the day HANA was announced, people in SAP ecosystem have been trying to find a crisp answer to “Does HANA replace BW? “. Countless blogs and tweets have been posted about that topic, as well as Q&A sessions, emails and so on. Guess what – that doubt still lingers . Not a week passes without someone asking me this question .  Of course that is not the only question – people want to know why they should migrate to BW on HANA, what is the process to do that and so on.

After one of such twitter conversations where many people restarted this conversation, Steve Lucas and I got together to figure out what is the best way to answer this once and for all.  Mico Yuk suggested a public webinar – along the lines of her “All Access” ones.  In fact, Mico did such a session with Steve last week or so which I unfortunately could not participate in due to other commitments.  Apparently, there was not enough time to get through all the questions.  That I fully believe is the case with HANA – I have had day long workshops with clients, and there will usually still be more questions at the end.

Steve and I are holding a Global Webinar on September 5th, 2012 at 1PM EST to try to tackle this issue.  SAP Insider will be hosting this event. Please join us and ask whatever questions you have on this topic. We are not planning to do this as a presentation with lots of slides. There probably will be a couple of slides just to introduce the topic, speakers and so on, but the intention is to make this as interactive as we can.  The intention is to let you ask questions and we will try to answer. If we cannot find you a good answer on the spot, we will follow up with a follow up blog to get to those.

Here is where you can register for the event.

https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=505959&sessionid=1&key=665DCDD239948C2B8529BA8C852C7377&sourcepage=register

I am sure a lot of you already know Steve (especially Steve) and me – but in case you do not, please check the above link for a brief on our profiles.

If you leave your questions on this blog as a comment, I will make sure we discuss those in the webinar. Of course, you could also ask  live during the webinar.

I am looking forward to the webinar next Wednesday .  Lets have some fun, and hopefully put at least the “Does HANA replace BW ?” question to bed  🙂

 

Apple Vs Samsung – Never Mind The Customer, Eh?


So I just heard the news that Apple got richer by a billion dollars , and Samsung has to pay up that money for patent infringements. Well, Apple did not get the whole amount it was seeking, but $1B is not too shabby. Since the Jurors only took under 3 days to decide on the case – I think Apple’s lawyers probably did an incredible job convincing them. Maybe they and other lawyers with similar expertise will see a bull market now for their skills and experience .

More than the $1B they got from the ruling – there are many benefits AAPL would get from this ruling.

Good press is not something AAPL is short on . The cult following they have will make sure that this will be hailed as a huge win for innovation, honesty, higher standards and so on. If Oracle or someone similar sued a competitor and won, they will probably never get the same opportunity to milk mileage out of it in internet and press. Such is life 🙂

AAPL would have also successfully scared several “innovative” competitors in their markets. Some version of this trial is bound to play in most countries . Patent laws apparently differ across the world, so who knows how this will net out after lawyers on both sides play several innings each. And of course there is the appeals process too. It will be a while before dust settles. I am not sure if this win for AAPL also gets them an ongoing royalty revenue stream from Samsung.

What about customers though? $1B will not kill the Samsung company – but they will directly or indirectly pass the cost to customers going forward. I am a customer who prefers my samsung galaxy tab over an iPad, although I use an iPhone. Many friends and family members use samsung devices – and I wonder how many carriers will be now scared to keep a contract going with Samsung.

Well, Samsung also sued AAPL. That might get them back something – if not in money, then at least in good will. But I am not going to hold my breath on Samsung having a good chance to beat AAPL in US market in near future . That will be such a shame , if that is how it plays out.

For innovation to thrive, irrespective of final results of these battles in court – the patent system should be revamped and simplified. Legal innovation does not have the same effect as product innovation for us customers.