Selling ERP F.U.D.

Since Duffield and Bhusri founded Workday in January 2005, they've never missed a chance to bash the traditional ERP model that had enriched them so much, while propping up their new SaaS model. What traditional ERP vendors don't provide and what Workday does offer, Duffield contends, is a model that delivers modern capabilities at a fraction of what organizations currently spend on HR or financials.

Another difference relates to innovation. "Workday delivered four major updates to our solution in 2008," he says, "adding significant functionality that goes immediately into the hands of every one of our customers."

In Singh, Workday found an ideal big-company CIO for its product. "Manjit really deserves a ton of credit for not only being open to Workday's SaaS model," Duffield says, "but working as an internal advocate for leveraging SaaS within Chiquita."

"I believe SaaS is one of the transformational changes in the IT industry similar to when we moved off mainframes and minicomputers and into the PC world," Singh says. "It's a game-changer for how CIOs should be thinking about how adding value back to the business."