Saba Recognized as a Leader in Leading Analyst Firm’s Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing…from Saba

December 14, 2011

 

Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration Leverages the Advent of Social Media and Mobile to Enable Organizations to Meet the Challenges of a New World of Work

HRchitect featured Saba in our release of The Suite Life of Integrated Talent Management and also includes them in our list of top Talent Management Systems and top Learning Management Systems vendors that businesses should consider. A.G. Lambert, the VP of Marketing with Saba appeared on the HRchitect WebMingle on August 14, 2009. Matt Lafata with HRchitect attended the 2010 Saba Global Summit and Analyst Day in Boston, MA. Matt Lafata & Tiffany Appleby attended the Saba Global Sales Rally FY12 in June 2011 in Redwood City, CA.

If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, don’t rely solely on “recommendations” or published reports. Do yourself a huge favor and talk to HRchitect first. After 14 years, HRchitect has unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation. Simply put, do not invest in any kind of HR technology without consulting with the experts first. HRchitect is always available to help!

 

Saba (NASDAQ: SABA), the premier People Cloud provider, today announced that Gartner, Inc. has positioned Saba as a “Leader” in the 2011 “Magic Quadrant for  Web Conferencing” report. The report provides guidance for organizations that are looking to implement Web conferencing solutions for benefits such as increased collaboration, cost savings and reduced business travel. It positions vendors based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute.

Gartner Comments:
“The growth of Web conferencing has continued, driven by  cost-saving initiatives and improvements in the technology’s ease of use and  performance.”

“The worlds of social media, collaboration and enterprise applications are starting to merge, bringing real-time capabilities to business process and personal productivity applications.”

“Real-time and conferencing functions are appearing as components of larger collaboration platforms and portfolios. The market is shifting so that real-time and conferencing functions are becoming embeddable capabilities.”

“Bandwidth concerns are increasing as companies look to add video and expand the scale of conferencing sessions.”

Supporting Quotes
“With Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration, we can connect visually with our students to reap the benefits of face-to-face communications. Additionally, with a highly dispersed and mobile student body, it is critical for us to have the most forward-looking technology that works on mobile devices, such as the iPhone and iPad,” said Becky Vasquez, chief technology officer, Embry-Riddle. “Since our launch of EagleVision, our virtual classroom using Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration, the reviews from both faculty and students have been very positive and student participation has increased nearly 100 percent in the past year alone.”

“Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration allows us to easily connect with a large, dispersed audience of sales, management and technical training professionals. We conduct meetings, training sessions, virtual trade shows, sales events, and coaching for new hires, all of which are stored in a content library of recordings that employees can access anytime, anywhere from any device,” said Rick Vlahos, executive director, Hearth Patio & Barbecue Education Foundation. ”We have employees scattered all over the US and Canada, including in rural areas with marginal Internet connections.

Accessibility to content and the ability to collaborate are key requirements for our organization; employees have found Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration to be the most convenient and user-friendly solution.”

“With an increasingly global and dispersed workforce, real-time collaboration in a visual format is becoming key for enhanced engagement, collaboration and innovation,” said Emily He, vice president of product marketing, Saba. “Additionally, as the market evolves, we continue to leverage integration with Saba’s award-winning learning management, talent management and enterprise social networking solutions to provide customers with a unified platform that enables organizations to be better prepared for the new world of work.”

Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration Highlights
Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration is an industry-leading Web conferencing, online meeting, virtual classroom, and webinar solution that enables an organizations extended enterprise, including employees, customers, and partners, to interact, communicate, share, and exchange knowledge in real-time. By making it easy to capture and share knowledge as it happens, Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration increases the value of session content and improves collaboration among globally dispersed workforces and ecosystems.

Combining real-time collaboration capabilities (like video conferencing, VoIP audio conferencing, text chat, and application sharing) with enterprise social networking capabilities (including the ability to create collaborative groups, publish content to YouTube-like video channels, and access information through interactive mobile Apps on iPhone or iPad), Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration is transforming how work gets done beyond meetings in a next-generation collaboration platform. In addition, Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration provides seamless integration with Saba Learning Management, Talent Management,  and Enterprise Social Networking.

Its dynamic, interactive environment provides the experience of in-person sessions without incurring the costs of travel. Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration provides options to use VoIP, teleconference, or a mix of both in any session. Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration is available in the Cloud and on-premise. The solution is also available on PC, Mac, Linux, iPhone and iPad.

About the Saba People Cloud

Saba People Cloud Applications, including Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration, help organizations transform their business by enabling them to:

  • Accelerate innovation by tapping into social and mobile capabilities to engage and connect employees to the right people, information, and ideas throughout the people network to drive new innovation and faster time to market.
  • Mobilize their people network for speed and agility to seize new opportunities through complete talent visibility and mobility. The Saba People Cloud provides organizations with visibility into all of the skills, experience, competencies, and connections of the people in their people network, as well as the ability to quickly align them to new business initiatives.
  • Cultivate a development culture inside and outside their organization to arm their people network with the knowledge they need, when they need it, to excel at their jobs, develop in their careers, and drive higher performance.
  • Leverage the Cloud with a completely unified, multi-tenant SaaS solution architecture and infrastructure that reduces costs, speeds time to benefit, and provides the flexibility to scale globally and adapt locally to fit your operational and financial needs.

For more information on Saba, please visit www.saba.com

To learn more about HRchitect’s expertise in HR technology strategy, selection and implementation services, and how HRchitect can help your organization, please visit www.HRchitect.com

 
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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Saba Announces Learning Management Exchange Program for Plateau and SuccessFactors Customers…from Saba

December 7, 2011

 

Special Offer Provides Access to the Saba People Cloud to Leverage an Organization’s Most Valuable Competitive Advantage — Its People

HRchitect featured Saba in our release of The Suite Life of Integrated Talent Management and also includes them in our list of top Talent Management Systems and top Learning Management Systems vendors that businesses should consider. A.G. Lambert, the VP of Marketing with Saba appeared on the HRchitect WebMingle on August 14, 2009. Matt Lafata with HRchitect attended the 2010 Saba Global Summit and Analyst Day in Boston, MA. Matt Lafata & Tiffany Appleby attended the Saba Global Sales Rally FY12 in June 2011 in Redwood City, CA.

If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, don’t rely solely on “recommendations” or published reports. Do yourself a huge favor and talk to HRchitect first. After 14 years, HRchitect has unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation. Simply put, do not invest in any kind of HR technology without consulting with the experts first. HRchitect is always available to help!

 

Saba (NASDAQ: SABA), the premier People Cloud provider, today announced a learning management exchange program for qualified SuccessFactors learning customers (formerly Plateau). Available now, this offer is designed to give SuccessFactors customers the opportunity to switch, risk-free, to the Saba People Cloud platform, which includes its award-winning Saba Learning Management application. Saba delivers seamless blended learning in the industry’s only unified People Cloud platform to help organizations transform the way they work, thereby driving productivity to the extended enterprise, achieving greater compliance, mitigating risk, shortening time to productivity, and accelerating the pace of innovation.

Qualified SuccessFactors customers with active contracts will be entitled to a significant discount of Saba’s People Cloud platform, including equivalent subscription contracts at no charge for up to one year. Additionally, Saba will include Saba Centra Real-Time Collaboration and Saba Social with these exchanges at no additional charge for up to one year. Migration programs, tools, and special services packages will also be available to reduce the time, expense and risk of moving to the Saba People Cloud platform. With enterprise social networking, informal learning and real-time collaboration all in one unified platform, organizations can improve ROI, enhance engagement, and cultivate a true talent development culture. This exchange program is in effect and available immediately; qualified SuccessFactors customers will have until May 31, 2012 to take advantage of this special Saba offer.

“Saba continues to focus on delivering exceptional customer success, as well as an innovative and compelling product roadmap, which is aligned with our vision to enable organizations to transform the workplace for competitive advantage,” said Karen Steele, senior vice president corporate marketing, Saba. “Through this learning management exchange program, we are making it easy for organizations to improve how all of their people learn, grow and meet the challenges of a new world of work.”

The Saba People Cloud

The Saba People Cloud is a unified, people-centric and social platform designed to transform the way people work. Saba People Cloud Applications include Learning Management, Talent Management, Enterprise Social Networking and Real-Time Collaboration, all of which help organizations become more competitive through increased visibility, speed and agility. The Saba People Cloud is highly scalable and interoperable with HRIS, financial, and ERP systems. Additionally, the platform is built to help organizations and their people be more competitive by enabling:

  • Global and local scale to the level, reach and complexity customers need from a single, open platform
  • Prescriptive analyses of past behaviours, training and performance for actionable insights
  • Always on, always accessible collaborative environment designed to work across the entire people network to ensure access to everyone in the entire value chain anytime, anywhere and from any device.

 

Market Leading Learning Solution

Saba Learning Management provides unique capabilities to support sophisticated extended enterprise learning. With its mobile and social learning capabilities, it allows employees, customers and partners to rapidly connect, share, and retain the knowledge. Saba has received numerous accolades for its Learning Management Application, including:

 

For more information on Saba, please visit www.saba.com

To learn more about HRchitect’s expertise in HR technology strategy, selection and implementation services, please visit www.HRchitect.com

 
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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Customers Leverage the Saba People Cloud to Collaborate Across their Extended Enterprises…from Saba

December 1, 2011

 

Enterprises Adopt Saba’s Award-Winning People Cloud Applications to Mobilize Their People Networks for Increased Visibility, Speed and Agility

HRchitect featured Saba in our May 2008 release of The Suite Life of Integrated Talent Management and also includes them in our list of top Talent Management Systems and top Learning Management Systems vendors that businesses should consider. A.G. Lambert, the VP of Marketing with Saba appeared on the HRchitect WebMingle on August 14, 2009. Matt Lafata with HRchitect attended the 2010 Saba Global Summit and Analyst Day in Boston, MA. Matt Lafata & Tiffany Appleby attended the Saba Global Sales Rally FY12 in June 2011 in Redwood City, CA.

If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, don’t rely solely on “recommendations” or published reports. Do yourself a huge favor and talk to HRchitect first. After 14 years, HRchitect has unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation. Simply put, do not invest in any kind of HR technology without consulting with the experts first. HRchitect is always available to help!

 

Saba (NASDAQ:SABA), the premier People Cloud provider, today announced that customers, including Allina Hospitals and Clinics, IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) and SMART Technologies, are adopting Saba People Cloud Applications to collaborate across their extended enterprises. Saba People Cloud Applications include Learning Management, Talent Management, Enterprise Social Networking and Real-Time Collaboration, all of which help organizations become more competitive through increased visibility, speed, and  agility.

“Today’s businesses are being driven to find ways to remain competitive and embrace social computing across their people networks as their workforce, suppliers, distributors, and customers become more globally dispersed,” said Bobby Yazdani, founder and CEO, Saba. “In response, we are helping organizations embrace this change and transform the way they collaborate and work. Our approach is working as more companies are adopting Saba People Cloud Applications across the extended enterprise to increase the speed of business, improve visibility, and become more adaptable.”

“There is a need in the marketplace for vendors to provide solutions with broad and deep learning management, talent management and social capabilities to support knowledge sharing and visibility across the entire people value chain. This evolved culture of knowledge sharing promotes learning and trust, and fosters agility and speed of business initiatives among employees, suppliers, customers and partners,” added Mark Smith, CEO and Chief Research Officer, Ventana Research.

The success of Saba’s customers coincides with the rapid adoption of social computing, which is becoming critical to the modern day workplace. Forrester predicted in their report, “The Next Frontier for Enterprise Social” that by the end of this year more than half of enterprises in the US and Europe will have enterprise social technologies deployed.”

Customer Highlights

Allina Hospitals and Clinics: As the largest health system in Minnesota, Allina Hospitals and Clinics aims to connect both internal and external users to important organizational events and collaborative online classes. Through Allina’s learning management system (LMS), powered by Saba Learning Management and Saba Collaboration, 24,000 employees, 5,000 physicians and 2,500 volunteers can set up and manage their own communities; participate in discussions; post and answer questions; and share in the collaborative creation of content, encouraging informal learning within the employee base.

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group): IHG uses Saba applications to enable enterprise-wide success in employee learning and development. IHG’s global LMS is the system of record for employees to access standardized information worldwide at all IHG hotels. In addition, IHG’s e-learning, virtual instructor-led classroom, talent management and collaboration processes are all rooted in Saba applications, allowing IHG employees to work together across a number of regions and keep aligned with corporate messaging.

SMART Technologies:  The Saba People Cloud has enabled SMART Technologies to provide expanded and enhanced training to a growing global community of 40,000 educators, businesspeople, sales partners and employees in the use of SMART Board™ interactive whiteboards and other technology-enabled learning and collaboration solutions. Each month, SMART Technologies receives 10,000 course registrations for its interactive, online learning courses. “With Saba People Cloud Applications, we can conduct needs assessments and direct users to recommended learning paths leading to credentials for educators, as well as certifications for business people,” said Wayne Williams, manager of learning systems for SMART Technologies.

For more information on Saba, please visit www.saba.com

 
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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Saba and Management Innovation eXchange to Unveil Social Business Initiative to Reinvent Management at Enterprise 2.0 Conference…from Saba

November 11, 2011

 

Innovative New Social Initiative to Transform the Workplace in 21st Century Organizations

HRchitect featured Saba in our May 2008 release of The Suite Life of Integrated Talent Management and also includes them in our list of top Talent Management Systems and top Learning Management Systems vendors that businesses should consider. A.G. Lambert, the VP of Marketing with Saba appeared on the HRchitect WebMingle on August 14, 2009. Matt Lafata with HRchitect attended the 2010 Saba Global Summit and Analyst Day in Boston, MA. Matt Lafata & Tiffany Appleby attended the Saba Global Sales Rally FY12 in June 2011 in Redwood City, CA.

If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, don’t rely solely on “recommendations” or published reports. Do yourself a huge favor and talk to HRchitect first. After 14 years, HRchitect has unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation. Simply put, do not invest in any kind of HR technology without consulting with the experts first. HRchitect is always available to help!

 

Saba (NASDAQ: SABA), the premier People Cloud provider, recently announced that it will be unveiling the details of a new, innovative project with the Management Innovation eXchange (MIX) at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara, CA on November 14–17, 2011. The details of this new initiative will be announced during the keynote panel, “Inventing Management 2.0: Lessons From the Fringe” featuring Polly LaBarre, co-founder and editorial director of the MIX, from 4:30–6:00 p.m. on the opening day of Enterprise 2.0, November 14, 2011. Saba and MIX speakers will also present in several panels in the “People and Culture” track on November 15, 2011.

The initiative will be facilitated by Saba and the MIX in conjunction with the Enterprise 2.0 Conference. The large-scale project involves progressive thinkers from around the globe in a distributed problem-solving effort to explore the ways in which the new social, mobile Web will transform the workplace and change how large organizations are run and managed over the next decade.

Saba and the MIX will be unveiling additional details of this initiative during the conference in Booth 411. Additionally, the two organizations will be sponsoring the official Enterprise 2.0 attendee party from 6:00–7:30 p.m. on November 15, 2011, at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, CA. Management experts from the MIX as well as progressive management practitioners, technologists, and thinkers from the Enterprise 2.0 community will be in attendance.

For more information on Saba, please visit www.saba.com

 
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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Saba Drives Significant Momentum in EMEA With Strong Customer Wins, New Offices, and Strategic Partnership…from Saba

October 12, 2011

 

With 23+ Million Worldwide Users, Saba Continues to Add Key Enhancements to Its People Cloud Applications to Meet Growing Global Demand

HRchitect featured Saba in our May 2008 release of The Suite Life of Integrated Talent Management and also includes them in our list of top Talent Management Systems and top Learning Management Systems vendors that businesses should consider. A.G. Lambert, the VP of Marketing with Saba appeared on the HRchitect WebMingle on August 14, 2009. Matt Lafata with HRchitect attended the 2010 Saba Global Summit and Analyst Day in Boston, MA. Matt Lafata & Tiffany Appleby attended the Saba Global Sales Rally FY12 in June 2011 in Redwood City, CA.

If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, don’t rely solely on “recommendations” or published reports. Do yourself a huge favor and talk to HRchitect first. After 14 years, HRchitect has unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation. Simply put, do not invest in any kind of HR technology without consulting with the experts first. HRchitect is always available to help!

 

Saba (NASDAQ:SABA), the premier People Cloud provider, today announced continued momentum in the EMEA region during its first quarter of fiscal year 2012, which ended August 31, 2011. Milestones achieved in the quarter in EMEA included increased adoption of Saba solutions, new alliance partnerships, and the opening of two new offices. Saba also enhanced product capabilities across Saba’s suite of People Cloud applications and increased the number of worldwide users to 23 million, as organizations increasingly turn to Saba to better leverage their most important assets — their people and people networks.

According to PwC’s 14th Annual Global CEO Survey, organizations are increasingly realizing that despite high unemployment in mature markets like the United States and Western Europe, there are still major skills shortages around the world. Simultaneously, in high-growth markets like China, Brazil, and India, there is fierce competition for a limited pool of top talent. This means that organizations cannot rely on recruiting and hiring from the outside and must be much smarter about internal talent reviews, calibration, learning, knowledge sharing, and mobility.

“Retaining and nurturing the best people and focusing on people as the core strategy are critical in today’s competitive market,” said Bobby Yazdani, CEO and founder of Saba. “We are enabling our customers to cultivate a knowledge-sharing and learning culture to address global challenges of hyper-competition, workforce complexity, and shorter product life cycles. Our rapid customer adoption in EMEA is validation that our strategy is working, as we begin to realize our vision for the industry’s first, unified People Cloud offering that enables organizations to become transformative, smarter, and more adaptable to the changing world of work.”

Significant Customer and Partner Growth

Over the past six months Saba has witnessed rapid adoption of its People Cloud applications across EMEA, adding new customers and partners, as well as seeing increased adoption of its broad solution set by existing customers.

 

  • New customers include organizations such as Apollo-Optik (Germany’s leading optician); Axel Springer AG, Lancashire County Council, Landesamt fur Finanzen, Metro Ag,  PKO Bank Polski (Poland’s largest bank), and Springer Medicine (the leading CME-Academy provider)
  • Saba also announced an important new partnership with British Telecom to provide a fully managed people management solution as part of BT Learning Solutions.

“We chose Saba People Cloud Applications because it is on a unified platform for learning and development, performance appraisal, and talent management. In the future, we will be able to train our workforce more comprehensively and offer them more opportunities for personal development,” said Erich Ehbauer, CIO, Apollo-Optik. “We also wish to continually optimize our customer service, which will give us a strategic edge. Saba People Cloud Applications are highly scalable and internationally available. We can use the applications easily and flexibly in our franchises.”

“Saba provides us with an enterprise-scale solution based on a holistic vision around people management. They offer a solution that is organically built, providing a truly unified experience across all people processes, infused with collaboration and enterprise social networking capabilities,” said Sundar Balasubramanian, director of BT Learning Solutions. “We have implemented various Learning Management Systems previously and have in-depth knowledge of the various technologies in this space. We were looking for a modular platform that can grow with the needs of our customers without requiring significant investments in integration.”

New Offices

To meet growing demand, Saba has moved to new offices in Paris and Munich.

“As demand for our innovative People Cloud applications continues to increase, we have made significant investments in our sales and services teams to ensure we maximize our market coverage, whilst at the same time continuing to offer the highest levels of customer service,” said Phil Richardson, vice president of EMEA region, Saba.

For more information on Saba, please visit www.saba.com

 
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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Saba Announces Fourth Quarter and Record Fiscal Year 2011 Results…from Saba

July 29, 2011

 

  • Record total bookings of $125.4 million in fiscal year 2011, up 13% year-over-year
  • Record deferred revenue of $45.8 million at the end of fiscal year 2011, up 24% year-over-year
  • Annual contract value of new SaaS bookings grew 276% in the fourth quarter of 2011 and grew 210% in fiscal year 2011 over the respective year ago periods
  • SaaS revenue grew 59% in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011 and 33% in fiscal year 2011 over the respective year ago periods
  • Added 153 new enterprise customers in fiscal year 2011; 40 in the fourth quarter

HRchitect featured Saba in our May 2008 release of The Suite Life of Integrated Talent Management and also includes them in our list of top Talent Management Systems and top Learning Management Systems vendors that businesses should consider. A.G. Lambert, the VP of Marketing with Saba appeared on the HRchitect WebMingle on August 14, 2009. Matt Lafata with HRchitect attended the 2010 Saba Global Summit and Analyst Day in Boston, MA. Matt Lafata & Tiffany Appleby attended the Saba Global Sales Rally FY12 in June 2011 in Redwood City, CA.

If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, don’t rely solely on “recommendations” or published reports. Do yourself a huge favor and talk to HRchitect first. After 14 years, HRchitect has unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation. Simply put, do not invest in any kind of HR technology without consulting with the experts first. HRchitect is always available to help!

Saba (NASDAQ: SABA), the premier People Cloud provider, today reported financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended May 31, 2011.

“We grew our SaaS bookings 276% and SaaS revenue 59% in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011.  We now have one of the fastest growing SaaS businesses among public companies,” said Bobby Yazdani, Chairman and CEO of Saba.  “We signed four of the five largest transactions in our history during the fiscal year, with all four customers selecting Saba People Cloud Applications.  The transformation of our business to SaaS from license is well ahead of plan.  I want to take this opportunity to thank the Saba team for all their hard work and dedication, and congratulate them on their success in enabling Saba to become a world-class SaaS company.”

SaaS revenue steadily increased during fiscal year 2011, growing 8% in the first quarter, 19% in the second quarter, 42% in the third quarter, and 59% in the fourth quarter over the respective year-ago periods.  Nine of our 12 largest deals in the fourth quarter were for SaaS offerings.  The number of new SaaS transactions over $50,000 increased almost three-fold in fiscal year 2011 over fiscal year 2010. 

Results for the Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2011

Revenues: Total GAAP revenues were $29.9 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011, up 1% from $29.6 million in the same quarter last year.  Total Non-GAAP revenues in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011 were $30.0 million, up 1%, compared to $29.6 million in the same quarter last year.  Non-GAAP revenues reflect the exclusion of the fair value adjustments to deferred revenue due to acquisitions.

For fiscal year 2011, total GAAP revenues increased to $116.7 million from $109.6 million in the year ago period.  Total Non-GAAP revenues for fiscal year 2011 increased 7% to $116.7 million from $109.6 million in the year ago period.

Deferred Revenue: Total Deferred revenue increased to a record $45.8 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2011, growing 24% year-over-year and 8% sequentially.

Fourth Quarter Investments:  During the fourth quarter, we accelerated our investments in a number of key areas by approximately $2.0 million or $0.07 per share to support our fiscal year 2012 growth initiatives.  Areas of investment included:

Sales Force Expansion — added country managers in Canada, India, and China and continued expansion of sales capacity and management in existing and new markets

International Expansion — launched our operations in China and grew our operations in Latin America and Asia Pacific

Cloud Operations  – invested in our global cloud operations in preparation for the major release of our new People Cloud Applications which is planned for this Fall and invested in a number of new technological innovations that are planned to be released throughout fiscal year 2012.  We also added key executives to run our Cloud business including Shawn Farshchi as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and Daniel Lipkin, Vice President of Technology

Acquisitions — closed our acquisition of two leading testing and assessment software companies

Earnings (Loss) per Share: GAAP loss per share was $0.17 in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011 compared to fully diluted earnings per share of $0.03 in the same period last year.  Non-GAAP loss per share was $0.10 in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011 compared to non-GAAP fully diluted earnings per share of $0.08 in the fourth quarter of last year. 

For fiscal year 2011, GAAP loss per share was $0.26 compared to fully diluted earnings per share of $0.09 in fiscal year 2010.  Non-GAAP loss per share was $0.02 in fiscal year 2011 compared to non-GAAP fully diluted earnings per share of $0.29 in fiscal year 2010.

Our non-GAAP results are calculated by adjusting GAAP results for the impact of certain items including (i) non-cash amortization of intangibles, (ii) non-cash charges related to share-based compensation expenses, (iii) non-operating reorganization costs, (iv) fair value adjustments to deferred revenue due to acquisitions and (v) other acquisition related costs for legal and accounting services.  A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results is included in the financial statements accompanying this press release.  

Cash: Cash flow from operations was $4.0 million in fiscal year 2011, and cash and cash equivalents at May 31, 2011 were $25.9 million.  

Share Repurchase: The Company repurchased 243,648 shares of common stock during the quarter for $2.3 million, bringing the total number of shares repurchased under its share repurchase program to 777,291 shares for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $5.5 million.  The Company now has approximately $4.5 million remaining under the repurchase program.    

Customers: We added 40 new enterprise customers in the quarter including Fiat/Chrysler, Shire Pharmaceuticals, Fitch Ratings, and Kumon Institute of Education.  

In addition, we expanded our footprint with a number of our existing customers in the quarter including W.W. Grainger, Five Guys, Union Bank, Bio-Rad, Novartis, France Telecom, and Kronos. 

Partners:  We added 14 partners in the fourth quarter including Aon/Hewitt, Satyam, and British Telecom.   We have signed 36 new partners in fiscal year 2011 bringing our total number of partners to 107.  Our partners once again contributed over 50% of our new business in the quarter. 

Acquisitions:  We acquired Pedagogue Solutions and Comartis, two leading software companies in the testing and assessment market.  These companies provide the foundation of our new Testing and Assessment offerings.  “The ability to test and assess skill levels and learning effectiveness is an essential element of any learning management system,” said Bobby Yazdani, Chairman and CEO of Saba.  “Organizations need to understand how effectively their people are trained and whether the imparted knowledge and developed skills are being successfully applied.  In addition, our new testing and assessment offerings  broaden our market opportunities beyond the traditional talent management space.” 

Business Outlook           

The following statements are based on current expectations as of the date of this release. These statements are forward-looking, and actual results may differ materially.  Saba does not undertake any obligations to update these forward-looking statements.

For fiscal year 2012, ending May 31, 2012, we are forecasting total GAAP revenues in the range of $130 million to $133 million. 

We are forecasting total bookings to grow approximately 16% to 18% in fiscal year 2012 over fiscal year 2011 with SaaS bookings growth in excess of 110% in fiscal year 2012 over fiscal year 2011. 

We expect our operating income in fiscal year 2012 to be impacted by our recent success in selling multi-hundred thousand subscribers on the Cloud.  As part of the adoption of Financial Accounting Standards Board standard for multiple-element revenue arrangements,  ASU 2009-13, for certain transactions, we are required to recognize a portion of the respective professional services revenue ratably over the life of the contract while incurring the professional services expense upfront.  We estimate this to negatively impact our earnings per share by $0.06 to $0.08 in fiscal year 2012. 

As such, we are forecasting GAAP net loss to range from $0.39 to $0.45 per share and non-GAAP net loss to range from $0.17 to $0.23 per share.

Fiscal year 2012 non-GAAP outlook excludes non-cash amortization of intangibles, charges related to stock-based compensation expenses and the impact to revenue for fair value adjustments to deferred revenue due to acquisitions.

For more information on Saba, please visit www.saba.com

 
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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Saba and Management Innovation eXchange Form Strategic Alliance to Power Up Gary Hamel Led Community of Leading Experts on Disruptive Management Practices…from Saba

May 12, 2011

 

HRchitect featured Saba in our May 2008 release of The Suite Life of Integrated Talent Management and also includes them in our list of top Talent Management Systems and top Learning Management Systems vendors that businesses should consider. A.G. Lambert, the VP of Marketing with Saba appeared on the HRchitect WebMingle on August 14, 2009. Matt Lafata with HRchitect attended the 2010 Saba Global Summit and Analyst Day in Boston, MA

If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, don’t rely solely on “recommendations” or published reports. Do yourself a huge favor and talk to HRchitect first. After 14 years, HRchitect has unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation. Simply put, do not invest in any kind of HR technology without consulting with the experts first. HRchitect is always available to help!

Saba (NASDAQ:SABA), the premier people cloud provider, today announced its strategic alliance with Management Innovation eXchange (MIX), a community of progressive management innovators architected by Gary Hamel and supported by thought leaders from leading academic institutions including Harvard Business School, Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, and The London Business School as well as business leaders from organizations such as McKinsey & Company, HCL Technologies, Dell, and the Human Capital Institute.

The MIX is an open innovation project aimed at reinventing management for the 21st century. It is founded on the belief that to thrive in the 21st century, organizations must be adaptable, innovative, inspiring and socially accountable, which require a genuine revolution in management principles and practices. Saba whole-heartedly embraces the MIX’s revolutionary vision for the future of management and is proud to collaborate with MIX to accelerate the pace of management innovation by powering its collaborative platform.

As a part of this alliance, Saba’s People Cloud applications will power the MIX platform with collaboration, ideation and conversation capabilities amongst the community of thought leaders and experts dedicated to revolutionizing management principles and practices. As a partner and active participant in the MIX community, Saba will be able to exchange and gain insight into new management ideas and approaches that could better enable the company and its global customer base of 1,400 enterprises and 19 million users to implement leading-edge ideas and practices.

Supporting Quotes:

“Saba’s mission to provide solutions that enable enterprises to power up their people to boost performance and drive results aligns well with the MIX’s goal to reinvent the way enterprises organize resources to productive ends,” stated Bobby Yazdani, chairman and CEO of Saba. “We look forward to joining Gary and other world-renowned experts to share best practices and innovate management methods that help organizations be more effective.”

“Traditional hierarchical management structures inhibit creativity, collaboration and progress,” said Gary Hamel, founding member and architect of the MIX. “The MIX is a platform where trailblazers come to tackle these issues in order to create organizations that are inventive, adaptable and engaging. Saba’s passion for enabling people-driven enterprises makes it a perfect partner for the MIX.”

For more information on Saba, please visit www.saba.com
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

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