Salesforce Move will Trigger HCM Merger Wars

By Jim Lundy
Salesforce announced today that it is buying Rypple, a Social Performance startup with offices in Canada and San Francisco. Aragon Research will be publishing a full First Cut on this move tomorrow.

The major news from Salesforce was not the purchase of Rypple, but its announcement of a new HCM business unit that it is calling SuccessForce, which will be run by John Wookey.  What this means for the industry is that Salesforce is not content to stay in the CRM application space any longer. The bidding war for firms like Cornerstone OnDemand, Halogen, Saba, Taleo, and even Workday will start now.

The only problem with all this is that Human Resources departments at most enterprises have limited funds. When an industry consolidates as much as it looks like HCM and Talent is about to, it usually means higher prices.