By Jim Lundy
Saba Software announced today that Founder and CEO Bobby Yazdani was stepping down. This isn’t the first time that Bobby has stepped down from Saba. He stepped down from the CEO role in the early 2000s and returned in 2004. I know because I covered Saba then and still cover them now.
On top of that, some of you may know that I was at Saba for 18 months as General Manager of Collaboration and reported to Bobby. Shawn Farshchi joined as COO during my last six months there and my take is that the gears were already turning on a transition, the day that Shawn joined Saba.
In light of all the social media chat that will clearly entail, here are a few facts about Saba to keep in mind.
Saba: Five Facts you should know
1. New Interim CEO Shawn Farshchi is a customer focused executive with substantial Cloud Experience (Webex). I know him and he is one of the nicest executives you will meet. Saba also has Jeff Carr, President, Worldwide Field Operations helping to steer the ship. Jeff is well known in the Learning and Social HCM markets. Finally, CMO Emily He, a battle tested veteran from Siebel, has been there for several years.
2. Saba has some of the largest customers in the world that use its products. We have interviewed Saba customers many times when doing reference checks for research. More on this later.
3. Saba’s core product suite is based on J2EE and is highly scalable. It is one of the reasons that enterprises select Saba.
4. Saba People Cloud, its Social Software Platform, was ranked as a Innovator in our Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Social Software, 2012. SuccessFactors (SAP) and Social Text (PeopleFluent) were the other Social HCM vendors that got similar ratings.
5. Saba’s Virtual Classroom product, Saba Classroom (formerly Saba Centra) is used around the world by leading enterprises. It is now fully integrated with their Social Platform, Saba People Cloud. Saba’s Real-time Collaboration products will be rated in our new Aragon Research Globe for Real-Time Collaboration that is publishing in March 2013.
Saba Facts and Consulting versus Objective Analysis
I mention some of these facts about Saba because we look at vendors objectively. There are many consultants in the market that claim to offer strategic advice and then try to sell an end user firm on an Implementation of a particular HCM or Talent provider. In some cases, the vendor being recommended may or may not be the best one for that end user enterprise. We do not offer consulting implementation services, so we are not beholden to any vendor. The rankings in our Aragon Research Globe Reports are objective and that is why it often takes months to produce them.
I will be at the Saba People Summit 2013 in San Francisco next week. Follow me on Twitter (@JimLundy) for live Tweets during their event and look for our First Cut that analyzes this further.
Editors note: See our Learning and Talent Page for more information about our coverage about Learning, Talent, Social HCM and Learning Content and Courseware.