HR consulting firm Mercer recently released a study showing that employers plan to make changes to their talent programs as the economy emerges from the recession. Mercer also noted that employers made “dramatic changes” to talent programs during the recession. With all this change going on, are we getting better at managing talent?

I've been looking for opportunities to innovate for more than 40 years, having always been captivated by each new generation of technology and the gains it can bring to business—from the mainframe through client-server and now to SaaS and the Cloud. I've founded five companies in my career, and it's no secret that Workday is likely my last—and it also feels like the best. For one simple reason: We're clearly saving our customers time and money.

There’s a bit of age discrimination going on with enterprise software, and it’s based on the assumption that older, tradition-bound companies view SaaS with a gimlet eye. Older companies, with all their legacy and cultural issue—the assumption goes—have left the SaaS party up to the young companies selling this newfangled stuff to other young companies with little or no established IT infrastructure.

The tough economy has hit IT budgets hard, but there’s one area where many companies continue to invest, and it might surprise people. According to a new Towers Watson survey, 83% of respondents said they are maintaining or increasing spending on HR software in 2010.

As an admitted technology junkie, I love watching as companies such as Google, Salesforce.com, Apple, Facebook and a revitalized Microsoft continue to deliver innovation at such an unrelenting pace. I’ll openly admit to having a first-edition iPad, Droid and even a Palm Pre (which is a better device than its market traction suggests).