Workday, Inc. is an on-demand (cloud-based) financial management and human capital management software vendor.

It was founded by David Duffield, the founder and former CEO of the ERP giant PeopleSoft, and former PeopleSoft chief strategist Aneel Bhusri following Oracle's hostiletakeover of PeopleSoft in 2005. Workday differs from other cloud-based software providers in that it targets the customers of rivals Oracle or SAP by offering them "online services at a fraction of the cost of upgrading from their incumbent vendors". It launched a successful initial public offering that valued it above better[1] known software companies that have gone public in 2012, including Groupon and Zynga.
Contents

1 Early history 2 Initial public offering 3 Business model

3.1 Corporate governance

4 Product 5 References 6 External links

Early history
Workday was founded in March 2005 and launched in November 2006. Initially, it was funded by Duffield and venture capital firm Greylock Partners. In December 2008, Workday moved its headquarters from Walnut Creek to Pleasanton, where PeopleSoft, founder Duffield's prior company, was located. [3][4] Workday sells software and services using the SaaS model. On February 6, 2008, Workday announced that it had reached a definitive agreement to purchase Cape [5][6] Clear. In May 2008, Workday signed a large contract with Flextronics to provide human capital [7] management software services. Other large, multinational companies that have publicly disclosed [8] [9] contracts or deployments of Workday include Aviva, Chiquita Brands, CAE Inc., Fairchild [10] [11] [12] [13] Semiconductor, Rentokil Initial, Thomson Reuters, and Time Warner. On April 29, 2009, Workday announced that it secured $75 million in Series E funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Existing investors Greylock Partners and Workday CEO and co-founder Dave [14] Duffield also participated in the round. On October 24, 2011, Workday announced $85 million in new funding, bringing total capital raised to $250 million. Investors in the latest round included T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Janus, and Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment [15] entity of Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos. In a November 2011 article, the Wall Street Journal cited Workday as among a group of "technology start-ups that sell to business" that are "hot [16] again with Silicon Valleyinvestors, helped by the growing popularity of online software".
[2]

Initial public offering

As of spring 2012, Workday had more than 310 customers, ranging from mid-sized businesses [17] to Fortune 500 companies. In October 2012, Workday launched its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange with ticker symbol WDAY. Its shares were priced at $28 and ended trading

Friday, October 12, at $48.69, "propelled the start-up to a market capitalization of nearly $9.5 billion including unexercised stock options". It sold 22.75 million Class A shares, raising $637 million. The IPO raised more cash than any launch in the U.S. technology sector sinceFacebook's $16 billion IPO in May [1] 2012. Its shares surged 74% in their IPO, underscoring investor interest in cloud computing.

Business model
It makes money by offering subscriptions to services rather than selling software. Expenses are booked up front when it signs on a new customer but the associated revenue is recognized over the life of multiyear agreements. Workday does "not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future". Workday's revenue more than doubled to $119.5 million in the six[1] month period that ended July 31, 2012, while recording a net loss of $46.9 million.

Corporate governance
Duffield holds voting rights to Workday shares that were worth $3.4 billion and Bhusri held rights to shares valued at $1.3 billion. Collectively, they hold 67% of the company's voting shares. This voting [1] structure makes the event of a hostile takeover much more unlikely.

Product
Workday has released 18 updates to its product line as of November 2012.