Google gained a key customer for its cloud business after partnering with Workday, the financial and human capital management software maker. The deal announced on Tuesday will see Google Cloud be a preferred cloud partner across Workday’s core industries in the healthcare, retail and financial services segments.
Google will host those apps and ensure they are easy to use while providing low network latency.
The partnership offers Workday customers the flexibility needed to meet their respective business needs, according to a joint statement by the companies. They will be able to deploy Workday Financial Management, Workday Adaptive Planning, and Workday Human Capital Management on Google’s scalable and reliable infrastructure.
A possible win for the search giant
Having Workday choose its Cloud as the preferred choice is a potential win for Google, as Workday has more than 8,000 customers globally and more than 50 million end-users. The news has an interesting caveat, though.
In July, The Register revealed that one of those customers, Amazon Web Services, had dropped Workday to work with Oracle’s software, reportedly due to problems scaling up its platform across the more than 1.3 million people it employs.
Workday did not admit it had a scaling problem but owned up to the fact that Amazon is no longer one of its customers, saying there was a mutual agreement to discontinue the partnership.
What happened there?
Workday says the decision was made more than a year and a half ago because Amazon has a unique set of needs different from what the company delivers to the rest of its customers.
The announcement spooked people, leading to a 7% loss in Workday’s stock.
There have been other issues with customers like the State of Maine, which reported it was ordering an official review of a $54.6 million contract to renew its HR system using Workday’s software. However, Google has a Midas touch (contrived or otherwise) and could turn things around.
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