At a time when most companies are contemplating layoffs, Topaz Bridge is desperate to hire.

That can mean only one thing: business is, oddly enough, booming.

The Bellevue-based startup brought in around 20 new employees after licensing its new Topaz Bridge S2 software-application to Merck in January, and the company is looking to add another 40 this year.

Merk was the first client, and a big one at that. The pharmaceutical giant is deploying S2 to all of its employees across 84 countries.

Topaz Bridge CEO Noam Topaz went straight to hiring once the ink dried on the licensing agreement, adding around three new workers per day. He said he’s looking to land another 60 before 2010.

S2 is a go-between for SAP business software and Microsoft’s SharePoint server application. It’s function is to give employees direct access to their personal human-resources information so they don’t have to make changes through a third party.

Most large companies hire consultants to bridge the gap between business-software applications. S2 gives them all the same self-serve product for getting the job done.

“We connect the number-one software company in the world, which is Microsoft, with the number-two software company in the world, which is SAP,” Topaz said. “We come in with a turnkey solution and these programs start talking in very simple terms.”

Merck Executive Vice President Chris Scalet said using S2 is as easy for his employees as “buying a book online or paying their bills through an online banking service.”

Merck is the first company to deploy Topaz Bridge S2, but more deals are likely to come.

Around 90 percent of the Fortune 500 companies are running SAP software, and nearly 43 percent have deployed SharePoint.

That leaves a large market for S2 to exploit, assuming Microsoft or SAP don’t buy the rights first.

Joshua Adam Hicks can be reached at 425-453-4290.