A couple of comments stood out to me last year. One was from a partner at one of the polished shoe/ blue suit consulting firms. We were chatting on the conference floor of Unleash North America, and he said "we have kind of a yardstick for recession - L&D. When our clients start asking us to look into exec development, and we start seeing more action in L&D, those are some of the canaries in the coal mine we pay attention to". Later in the year, an experienced vet of the talent tech wars quipped to me "I tell you, LMS and L&D stuff? That's way overdue for some action".

So... hmm. We saw a few trembles that the L&D space was heating up. Saba swept in and scooped up Lumesse in 2019. This gave them a foothold into the talent acquisition space (Lumesse has solid offering there). There were other rumbles.

But now this: several big, bold moves early in 2020. Kronos going in for a huge buy of Ultimate Software, for a mere $22 billion, and now Cornerstone grabbing Saba for a (relatively) teensy $1.4 b. Here's the press release language from Cornerstone:

"With the addition of Saba, Cornerstone will have an expanded reach and ability to help a larger, diverse group of clients realize the potential of their people with the right learning and development opportunities. The combined company will have more than 75 million users and serve approximately 7,000 organizations, of all sizes, around the globe.

The combined company will be well-positioned to deliver a highly differentiated portfolio of people development and talent experience software solutions by leveraging the existing product portfolio, as well as through accelerated product development enabled by a larger combined R&D team, greater financial resources, and a shared vision for the future.'

That's a whole lot of way of saying: we are going for market domination. That said... I'm thinking it's also a way of saying "Hey, Kronos, we just got nice fat and juicy. Care to take a bite?"

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