HR Technology Column

While not as exciting as the opening of baseball season, the opening of this spring's HR conference season is being closely watched as an economic indicator of the industry's health and a reflection of corporate travel policies -- for this year, at least.

Yup, the sector is still berserk with innovation, despite the downturn, layoffs and hiring slowing to a crawl. So what better time to debut something completely new, as industry veteran Rob McGovern, founder of CareerBuilder and current CEO of Jobfox, just did?

Sorry, nothing new to report from Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan, unless you need to pay employees in those countries. A UK company called Patersons is offering U.S. HR departments a different way to get their arms around global payroll.

Kronos is breaking out of its niche as the country's leading provider of time clocks and associated software to push the envelope of the "Workforce Management" category. And in the current economy that couldn't be better news for customers and Kronos -- and worse news for the ERPs.

You can call it girding your loins, battening down the hatches, or another cliche you prefer, but HR technology companies are facing what nearly all assume is going to be a very tough year. There have already been layoffs, but also some original thinking for coping with hard times.

No, it's not a new virtual world, but the third stage of its 24-year existence. After bringing artificial-intelligence technology to HR, then becoming a talent-management suite vendor, Authoria has been acquired by a private-equity firm. It could be the best (or worst?) stage of its life.

After seeming to settle down and consolidate for a while, recruiting software has once again become the most competitive, contentious and confused sector in all of HR technology. Why? Because they still haven't gotten it right!

The 11th Annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition may have been incredibly successful, but nagging questions about the economy hung over the conference. Electronic polls of attendees revealed important insight into current business conditions, plus some expectations for the future.

Five vendors have been chosen to blow your mind at the "Cool New Technologies for HR" session at the HR Technology Conference® in Chicago. Beyond being fun and entertaining, their products are all available now to help improve the work of recruiting, performance management, training and social networking.

The "Industry's First Talent Management Shootout" at the HR Technology Conference® will feature the software-slinging CEOs of Authoria, Cornerstone OnDemand, Salary.com and Softscape. Beyond being a sign of the segment's maturity, the event will be bloody, as usual, though not fatal.

Oracle, the 800-pound gorilla of ERP, is helping customers predict -- and react -- to future business demands, while continuing to keep everyone guessing about its own future: namely, the three-years-and-counting development of new Fusion applications.

The most successful social network for business people, LinkedIn was much in the news recently following $53 million in new funding. What no reports said, including The New York Times, is how LinkedIn has betrayed the trust of its members.

Taleo's recently announced acquisition of Vurv changes the game -- in recruiting and talent management -- for thousands of companies. After much speculation in the blogosphere, here's my best take on what to expect.

Since going public almost three years ago, Kenexa has been roundly criticized for not revealing more about its business. Wall Street calls that "transparency"; we call it honesty. All that finally changed last month.

The lawsuit between talent management vendors SuccessFactors and Softscape is just the latest example of the cutthroat competition raging in the independent packaged software business since it started in 1969.

The answer is Softscape, one of the three original "mini-suite" vendors from years ago. It has 10-year-old evidence proving it was first. It also has one of the few complete suites of talent-management applications available. And 280 customers are using some of them.

Everybody always wants to know who's up and who's down in the incredibly competitive vendor world of HR technology. The status of Workday, in particular, and recruiting vendors, in general, seems to be on the minds of many.

The strange, eight-year saga of Workstream may be coming to an end as exclusive negotiations with a potential buyer go into high gear. The original deadline of Jan. 25 has been extended for the first sale of a true North American talent-management vendor.