Recruiting Tech Vendors Following Taleo and Kenexa's Lead

The announcement that Kronos is buying Unicru is an indication that companies in the recruiting-technology field are following the lead of Taleo and Kenexa (whose stock rose sharply between the fall of 2005 and the Spring/Summer of 2006) and either hoping to go public or expand by merger or acquisition, one analyst says.
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/ B* ]$ D. }/ EYankee Group analyst Jason Corsello says that other vendors such as Vurv and Authoria may be primed for such moves.
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Corsello says that after "exhaustive due diligence" Kronos found Unicru to be the "one vendor on the market that the time was right for them. Vurv, Authoria -- they aren't at the stage for exit [IPO or merger/acquisition] yet, although they're fairly close." 4 O/ Y3 \! ]7 A/ E: O2 Y; g( r

8 f3 v  K2 L( S6 b" v8 ]8 cCorsello thinks the Kronos marriage is a good one for multiple reasons. "They play in the same markets; both are very dominate in retail" and hospitality, he says.
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3 Y" U+ y) K2 `/ U- bAlso, "Kronos is very synergistic to Unicru in terms of the applications standpoint; you can now incorporate absence management, time and attendance and [recruiting] so from an integrated capability functionality, it makes a lot of sense."3 @; |9 j5 o* L) a

" b2 _  C) x$ q. M3 AKronos will be able to use data it learns about employee absenteeism, attendance, and employee job-shift preferences to improve Unicru's selection processes. For example, it will be able to develop employee screening and assessment questions that can predict if an employee is likely to be a frequent unexcused-absentee.
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8 J2 \' o: M5 ?- p/ EStuart Itkin, chief marketing officer for Kronos, touts this data-sharing as one of the most important benefits of the Kronos/Unicru acquisition for companies using Unicru products.