Monday, December 8, 2008

The Workday Mystery

Why is it a mystery? It's a mystery because no one seems to know how Workday is truly performing. Recent press releases indicate that Workday has over thity customers live, but what vexes me is that I can't say whether or not this is good, bad or in between.

Among analysts, publications, trade shows and the general industry buzz, no company is quite as well known as Workday. I guess having Dave Duffield as your founder helps that. Some of that buzz is truly deserved as Workday is making the most audacious effort possible in HCM, namely overturning the Oracle/SAP ERP hegemony in HCM. Also, having seen a few demos, there is no lack of innovation, coolness and utility from the application itself. It's definitely not yet complete though, and likely lacks polish in a number of areas, but it seems to be getting there and it has a first rate technology team.

Still, questions remain:
  • How much in revenue are they doing? Are they profitable? Do they care?
  • How happy are these thirty customers? What are they implementing?
  • Is the technology working? Is it buggy, reliable, fast?
  • Is the functionality really flexible enough for the enterprise, or are there pressures to customise?
  • How are Dave Duffield and Greylock Capital defining success for Workday?

Lucky for them, as long as Dave is paying the bills (something he can do for a long time), they don't really HAVE to answer any of these questions anytime soon. However, if they are meeting with success, one would think that they would WANT to tell the world.

Personally, I am cheering for them.

1 comment:

Jason Averbook said...

Great post Sphinx. I would expect we continue to hear from them more into the future as the first waves of customers go live.

We have 2 customers that are live and pleased with what Workday has done for them at this point and as someone who was part of their users conference last month, good customer vibe and momentum.

Thats what I know..Hope helpful.. Great question for sure.