2009 has been another year of milestones for Workday. We’ve now passed the 100 customer mark and in spite of the toughest economic environment in a generation Workday is on track to grow bookings more than 50 percent this year. Customers are not just embracing Software-as-a-Service in large enterprises—in the past quarter we are starting to hear large companies considering SaaS as a lower-risk option to an on-premise ERP deployment. That’s a huge change in perspective from a year ago.
About two-thirds of Workday’s customers are now live on our solutions, including big companies such as Flextronics and Chiquita Brands. So instead of talking about the promise of a SaaS-based approach for ERP, we can demonstrate the cost savings and business results. I couldn’t be more proud of the Workday team.
Today we’re announcing another milestone as we plan to return to a goal for 100 percent year-over-year growth in 2010. Dave and I have asked Mike Stankey, one of the most accomplished executives we know, to join Workday as president and chief operating officer. I have personally known Mike for more than 15 years, first at PeopleSoft, then as CEO of PolyServe, and most recently as a partner at Greylock, and he is uniquely qualified to lead the company as we continue to grow.
Mike led North America for us at PeopleSoft, where he demonstrated outstanding leadership skills in helping drive that business to more than $1 billion in software and services revenue. As importantly, Mike brings with him the same focus on employees, customer success and operational excellence that form the foundation of what we do. As we grow Workday to support thousands of customers around the world, I’m confident Mike’s leadership will ensure we continue to maintain the type of culture, innovation and commitment to customer success that make this company so special.
With Mike on board, I’ll be joining Dave as co-CEO but our roles will remain the same: charting the course for Workday’s growth and the success of our customers.As he has since the day we founded the company, Dave is Workday’s chief customer advocate and the champion of our culture and values.And I will continue to focus my time on Workday’s product and technology strategy, as well as our long-term plans for global expansion.
As we move into October for our 3rd annual Workday Rising user conference and the delivery of Workday 9, it has never been clearer that we are in the midst of a broad technology shift from on-premise to Cloud and SaaS-based solutions. I’m personally looking forward, along with Dave, Mike and the rest of our team, to spending time with our customers discussing and collaborating around the future of enterprise software and the innovations possible with Workday. This is a great time to reflect on milestones achieved, but an even better time to consider the opportunities ahead.
