History
Taleo has its roots in Canada, where in 1996 Martin Ouellet established Viasite, a French-language job-board for candidates and employers. Ouellet and Louis Têtu soon began working with Fortune 500 companies interested in developing online approaches to recruiting that incorporated the efficiencies of supply-chain management processes.
Viasite was later renamed Recruitsoft, Inc. In 1999, Recruitsoft registered as a Delaware corporation with headquarters in San Francisco, California, and launched Recruiter WebTop, an online hiring management system.[6] Global expansion followed, and by 2001 the company had secured customer relationships with large enterprises including Hewlett Packard, Dow Chemical, Agilent, Hasbro, American Airlines, United Airlines, Deloitte&Touche, Bombardier Aerospace and Transportation, MetLife, Cabletron Systems, and Sutter Health.[7]
Recruitsoft, Inc. changed its name to Taleo Corporation in March 2004.[6] As the talent-management market matured, Taleo added products and capabilities, integrating recruiting with performance management in 2008,[8] adding compensation management in 2009,[9] and including learning and talent development in 2010.[10] As of 2010, Taleo made solutions available in 187 countries and in 31 languages.[1]
In August 2011, Taleo reported it had more than 5,000 customers ranging from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to large global enterprises, including nearly half of the Fortune 100.[11]
R&D
Taleo operated R&D facilities in Quebec City, Canada; Kraków, Poland; and Jacksonville, Fla., with additional development staff in its Dublin, Calif., headquarters and other locations.[1] Taleo's fiscal 2010 R&D investment was approximately $41 million. Jason Blessing was Taleo's Executive Vice President of Products & Technology.[12]
Acquisitions
In addition to its own R&D efforts, Taleo expanded its product offerings through the acquisition of third-party solutions, talent and intellectual property:
- October 2003, White Amber
- added contingent workforce management to the Taleo Enterprise platform[13]
