Taleo and Vurv; bigger, better stronger?

So the cat is out of the bag (at long last) and Taleo are now the proud owners Vurv.  But what does this really mean to the customers and, the market overall?

Not surprisingly, the deal is being presented as a meeting of minds and great technology.  But what else is there behind it all?  Or was Derek Mercer just looking to cash in before he missed yet another bandwagon?  $83m of stock and $36m cash is pretty good in my book so well done Derek. (based on Taleo stock price 6/5/08)

Vurv

Although they often quoted their ATS as having a very recent code base our experience suggests maybe not quite so new.  Also, as Vurv have acquired a fair amount of their functionality/modules you would think they would be integration masters?  Again, not our experience.  Some of the Talent Management modules do however look very good although a little over engineered. 

When you consider the majority of organisations are still using excel at best to manage top talent to go to any kind of automation is a massive step so logic would suggest good solid UI and the key processes automated but leave the bells and whistles for now.  But, as we all know that buyers can be swayed by great trickery I understand the dilemma to add everything so you can tick every box.  The other danger is that the people who demo the product also get click happy and either scare the s**t out of the buyer, put them to sleep or totally confuse them.

Taleo

Clearly one of the bigger players in the market although slow to enter the TM piece with still very new technology.  Also, quite a small footprint in Europe which is one of the reasons they will have wanted to acquire someone over here?!

They have also tended to build rather than buy so it will be interesting to see how they integrate any of the Vurv products; maybe better than Vurv?? 

People

Both parties have some very good people in the UK/EU but with them both being US vendors to all intents will they be able to 'localise' their products, pricing, support, strategy etc.  There have been so many US vendors struggle to make a real play here which is why Stepstone and Jobpartners continue to prosper.  I think their biggest challenge will be to make the companies work together to the benefit of their customers; in the meantime the competition will not miss the opportunity to take the offensive.

Market reaction

I am surprised that Taleo did not buy Jobpartners or Stepstone.  Maybe they tried and couldn't pull it off?  That does however leave JP and SS in an interesting position.  Can they continue to go it alone or do they merge?  Or do SAP/Oracle jump in and take both out?  Or are Stepstone looking to get back on the LSE so they have a better currency to trade for yet more acquisitions?

The Vurv website quotes some big, profitable and interesting stats around the 'people agenda' so SAP/Oracle won't be sitting back doing nothing.  I expect we will see some more activity yet this year.