The double rub for the customized customers is they will be offered something new that doesn’t do exactly what they want: Just what Vurv has been unsuccessfully offering them for two years in their “configurable” product, Versions 7.1 and 7.3.

And perhaps at a higher price!

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but the similarities persist with the Oracle acquisition of PeopleSoft. Many of those customers, too, had looked at Oracle before buying PeopleSoft.

But Oracle finally decided to continue selling PeopleSoft Enterprise and has eased the migration by offering new versions of PeopleSoft (”Apps Unlimited”) and fairly long support {”Lifetime Support”).

With Taleo deciding (at least for the moment) not to continue selling Vurv after the deal closes, apparently the transition will be more abrupt. And who knows how successful, given that other large enterprise recruiting systems continue to be available to them: Kenexa’s BrassRing, ADP’s Virtual Edge and Peopleclick.

And, of course, that doesn’t even consider the Talent Management equation.

Interesting times ahead.

Taleo has a bit of an uphill climb with the potentials for unhappy customers taking up lots of their time and the threat of emerging competition which will stretch sales cycles and put pressure on pricing. And finally, watch out for Rudy. I don’t know but I’m sure he has a plan and it is probably a good one.

#3 - While Taleo’s culture may not be as “loose” as Vurv’s there are a lot of good people there that are passionate about the space, and their customer’s success. Like PeopleSoft in the 90’s , you can make money and have fun at the same time.

#5 - while that may be your opinion, the fact is that Taleo has a customer retention rate of over 95%, and much of their business is referrals from former users including, believe it or not, recruiters. Opportunities that Taleo lost to Vurv were veryclose calls, and often price related.

#4 - The is no room in the SAAS application model for customization, as evidenced by Vurv’s move away from offering them. As with licensed software, the customer just gets into trouble, and upgrades become difficult and expensive. While a “configurable” model may not offer as much flexibility as a “customized” product, the rewards and benefits outweigh the trade-offs.

I led a long and exhausting Taleo implementation a few years back (but I suspect you already knew that) and write from both an experience and an opinionated perspective.

You are probably right that there are passionate people at Taleo working to ensure customer success, I just didn’t get to meet any of them during my implementation.

Across the board, more recruiters like the Vurv UI than do those who like the Taleo functionality. That’s the only point I wanted to make.

The whole topic of software customization versus configuration is much larger than this thread. In this context however, customers chose customization because it was available, not necessarily because it was the right thing for Vurv to do. That was a fundamental choice that may have been a more important decision criteria than price. At least for them at the time.

At the end of the day, the success of this acquisition is dependant on how well the executive team executes on their overall business plans.