Unit4 CEO Mike Ettling: enterprise customers won’t pay extra for AI
Summary
According to Unit4’s chief executive officer Mike Ettling, business applications customers will not pay extra for the more advanced technologies so heavily touted in recent years, usually under a special name. Ettling, who was president at SAP Success Factors, spoke to Computer Weekly at the recent Unleash HR software conference in Paris. “What I find the most intriguing about business-to-business software is that if you take the top five buzzwords – AI [artificial intelligence], machine learning, chatbots, predictive analytics, blockchain – customers expect all that for free,” he said. It just increases the pace of innovation.” What Unit4 calls its “people experience platform” is built on Microsoft Azure, of which Ettling said they have had a very deep understanding from their original cloud strategy, which pre-dates him joining the company, and was evident when Jose Duarté and Stephan Sieber held the CEO role. “This brings two like-minded companies closer, adds cloud-native and specialist talent acquisition to our portfolio and builds on complementary market presence in North America and Europe.