It’s called ADP, and it’s a $10 billion (fiscal 2011 sales) outfit that processes the paychecks received last year by some 33 million people around the world — and which processed some $1.2 trillion in payments to workers in the U.S. And it does almost all of it in the cloud.

Long before companies like Salesforce.com and Amazon popularized “the cloud” as the important technology force shaping business, before we even had the phrase “software as a service,” ADP was selling its clients on a service that in hindsight sounds very “cloudy.” Rather than shoulder the cost associated with running a payroll on their own, companies large and small would hire ADP to take that business function on for them, on a contract basis.

“If you go back enough years, we were known as a ‘service bureau,’” says ADP’s CIO Mike Capone. “It was all run off a mainframe. Payrolls would come in on a Monday or a Tuesday, and paychecks would go out on a Friday. That was the model.”

And though for a time it sold some traditional software, by early last decade ADP starting pushing its customers toward the Internet, with no software to install or manage on-site. It was so logical that no one really gave it any thought, Capone says. In the same way it made sense to outsource payroll to a third party, it also made sense to do it without selling any software, but rather let customers run it via the Web. “Back then, it was just obvious that this was the way to do it,” Capone says. “And so we just did it this way.”

And so it has been for years. About half of ADP’s revenue comes from payroll services; the other half from other things — benefits, human resources, time and attendance management, taxes — that any business with more than, say, two employees, needs to varying degrees. And ADP’s 570,000 clients run the gamut from tiny mom-and-pops to huge global companies, and more than 200,000 are cloud-based clients. Among ADP’s bigger customers are giants like Sodexo, Alcoa and Swiss Re.

Its rivals run the gamut, too. There’s Paychex in the payroll business; SuccessFactors and Workday in various bits of the human capital management business. Lawson and SAP and even Oracle’s PeopleSoft unit overlap with other parts of its business.

However, on Monday, ADP is doubling down on the cloud with what it’s describing as a “big bet” product that brings its entire stack of service offerings into one. The company has dubbed it “Vantage,” and it is essentially aimed at unifying payroll, recruiting, talent management, benefits and a batch of other things that businesses large and small need on a day-to-day basis, into a single cloud service. The company says it spent $600 million and 18 months researching and building it, and will announce it at a conference in Las Vegas.

I talked with Don Weinstein, a senior vice president at ADP’s headquarters in Roseland, N.J., recently. He told me that often companies get all these services from different vendors. The result is that data from one application ends up being trapped, because there’s no easy to way to move it into a related application from another vendor. The result is a messy kludge of in-house combinations that have been integrated, often badly.

And all these processes have costs. A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that large companies spend an average $1,400 per employee per year on things like payroll, workforce administration, time and attendance, and health benefits, and at midsized companies of between 100 and 1,000 employees, the costs reach nearly $2,000 per employee per year. They’re also the kind of processes that any self-respecting CIO will want to make more efficient or less costly.

The aim with Vantage, Weinstein says, is to give businesses a single vendor and a single stack of services they can use with all these processes, and with the data shared easily across applications. The result, he hopes, is that businesses will like what they see and start using more of ADP’s stuff, and add on other services over time. “We’re expecting to sell a broader array of product,” he says. “Half our business still comes just from payroll. But our intent is to offer this one integrated solution, and win a bigger share of their wallet.”

I also saw a demo, and while it’s not exactly as exciting as seeing the demo of the latest iPhone, you can see how it might make the lives of people in the back office of many companies easier. As with any SaaS application, all the data is stored in a single database, and everything runs through a common browser. Years of analysis of business processes has given it some idea of how things tend to flow in companies, and so it suggests logical next steps in every process.

It works along the same lines that Amazon does when it suggests books you might like based on the last one you bought or looked at. If you just added a new employee — say, in the job of a janitor — your next logical step may be to order him a uniform, so the system will suggest you do so, and take you to the process for doing that. Add a new sales exec, and you are guided to enable his or her access to company sales and performance tools. Not exactly riveting stuff, but if you run a company, it’s all very necessary.

Necessary enough that analysts covering ADP’s stock say it will grow its annual sales to about $11.4 billion. That’s a serious cloud.

Facebook’s use as a job-recruitment tool remains small, but its appeal may be growing. Some recruiters say they have all but eliminated their spending on job boards, which can charge a few hundred dollars per job posting, depending on volume. Others note that while LinkedIn contains a more comprehensive résumé database, candidates tend to value referrals from their connections on Facebook more.

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The deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter, involves a three-year traffic agreement under which Monster will become the provider of career and job content on the Yahoo (YHOO) homepage in the U.S. and Canada.

Obviously a smart move for Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, who has been trying to narrow the company’s focus to its core portal business–most recently by selling email technology provider Zimbra to VMware (VMW).

Now, if only Bartz can unload Yahoo Games and Yahoo Shopping.

The release, below.

Monster to Acquire HotJobs Business and Enter into Multi-year Traffic Agreement with Yahoo!
NEW YORK & MAYNARD, Mass., Feb 03, 2010 —— Monster Worldwide, Inc. (MWW 16.42, +0.38, +2.37%) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of Yahoo! HotJobs, a leading online recruitment website, from Yahoo! (YHOO 15.46, +0.29, +1.91%) for $225 million in cash. Monster and Yahoo! have also entered into a three year commercial traffic agreement, to take effect upon the closing of the acquisition, in which Monster will become Yahoo!‘s provider of career and job content on the Yahoo! homepage in the United States and Canada. The traffic agreement calls for performance based annual payments calculated by clicks and expressions of interest, subject to annual floors and ceilings. In addition, the traffic agreement provides Monster with an exclusive right for a period of time following the closing of the acquisition to negotiate similar traffic agreements with Yahoo! properties on a global basis, including countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America, subject to certain limitations.

“HotJobs with its significant customer base plus the traffic agreement are an ideal complement to Monster’s innovative recruitment solutions and global reach,” said Sal Iannuzzi, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Monster Worldwide. “These agreements, combined with Monster’s career Communities and our recently introduced 6Sense(TM) semantic search technology, will bring substantial new benefits for employers seeking more qualified candidates and job seekers searching for more relevant opportunities across a wider range of industries—globally.”

“Bringing together Monster and HotJobs creates even greater access and opportunities for both recruiters and job seekers,” said Hilary Schneider, EVP, Yahoo! (NSDQ: YHOO). “The transaction with Monster enables us to continue to provide an important service to our users through the traffic agreement. Yahoo! remains focused on its core businesses and delivering exceptional experiences to users, partners and advertisers.”

Monster believes that the acquisition of HotJobs and the traffic agreement with Yahoo! will provide a number of benefits to jobseekers and employers, who today have more diverse competitive choices than ever before, and a value to all of its stakeholders, including its shareholders. These include:

Anticipated increase in job matches and search efficiencies–By bringing more diverse job and career opportunities, tools and resources together in one place, employers and job seekers will enjoy greater convenience and more precise search results and better matches with Monster’s patented 6Sense(TM) search technology and other innovative products.

Expected expansion of job seeker pool for employers–Monster will be able to offer its employers a significantly larger pool of candidates across diverse geographies and industries. Based on Media Metrix comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) reporting, last year HotJobs averaged 12.6 million unique visitors per month.

Expected expansion of the number of job postings across industries for job seekers–Through the combination of Monster and HotJobs job postings, job seekers will have access to more job opportunities in one place in those industries currently leading job creation, including healthcare, finance and insurance, retail, manufacturing, information and wholesale trade.

Broader reach anticipated for recruitment advertising through additional media alliances and reseller agreement–With the addition of HotJobs’s network of more than 600 daily and weekly newspapers, Monster’s alliances with local papers will grow to a total of approximately 1,000, giving Monster reach in all 50 states. The additional newspaper alliances, through their online and print classified ads, will further Monster’s current strategy of connecting job seekers with smaller, local businesses, particularly in healthcare, education, and skilled and hourly job categories.

Yahoo! will continue to manage its broader Newspaper Consortium (NPC) partnership, including providing both search and display advertising, content distribution, and its ad-serving platform, to newspapers in its NPC.

The transaction is subject to clearance under Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is currently expected to close sometime during the third quarter of 2010, subject to regulatory review. Monster expects to realize operating synergies from the acquisition and currently anticipates the transaction will be breakeven on a pro forma full year earnings in 2010 and accretive thereafter, inclusive of the costs incurred under the traffic agreement.

Stone Key Partners LLC and Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as financial advisors to Monster in connection with this transaction. Allen & Company LLC provided a fairness opinion to Monster’s Board.

But it’s getting closer.

Interfax reports that Apple (AAPL) is near to obtaining the Network Access License from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology that would allow the iPhone to be sold in the country. Once the license is secured, Apple needs only to finalize a distribution deal with China Unicom to make good on Cook’s promise, though that has proven problematic.

Apple’s discussions with China Unicom have reportedly been troubled by the company’s distaste for the idea of China Unicom preinstalling non-Apple software–a media player other than iTunes, for example–on its iconic handset. That said, Apple is apparently confident enough in a positive outcome that it’s begun staffing up for a launch. Last week the company posted an ad to its recruitment Web site looking for someone to oversee “iPhone training” across Asia. The position, which will be based out of Beijing, is responsible for designing training programs for iPhone sales teams and retail channels partners.

Last year, Google (GOOG) posted a mock recruitment ad for a Google “human flesh search engine” (here in Chinese). This year, the Internet giant announced the launch of a new service in China: the “Google Pigeon Bird’s Eye View.” Similar in concept to Google Street View, Google says the new service will be used to improve the image resolution on Google Earth and Google Maps, while also embracing China’s vibrant “shanzhai” culture.

The project’s mission: to collect all sorts of shanzhai information about shanzhai celebrities, shanzhai places to go on a date, shanzhai innovations and shanzhai terms.

Google says that the new service aims to help “everyone can enjoy the benefit of shanzhai culture.” An exact total of 31,415,926 pigeons have been trained as “Google pigeons” (in Mandarin, “Google pigeon,” ?? guge, is a pun on Google’s similar sounding Chinese name, ??). The birds will be equipped with high-tech devices including a blue hat with GPRS and head massaging capabilities, a Chinese-style chest covering to hold CADIE chips (a reference to another Google spoof).

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The technology industry was supposed to cut 180,000 jobs in 2008; instead, it cut 186,955 jobs –up 74.2 percent from the 107,295 job cuts recorded in 2007. That’s the dismal word from recruitment outfit Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which helpfully notes that this is the largest industry workforce reduction since 2003, when tech suffered 228,325 layoffs.

Still a chance to break that record, though. Said Challenger, “Cuts could reach even higher in 2009, as there is no evidence yet that the economy has hit the bottom of this downward portion of the cycle. We almost certainly will not see a repeat of the 2008 first quarter, in which tech cuts totaled just 17,345.”