Karl Montevirgen is a professional freelance writer who specializes in the fields of finance, cryptomarkets, content strategy, and the arts. Karl works with several organizations in the equities, futures, physical metals, and blockchain industries. He holds FINRA Series 3 and Series 34 licenses in addition to a dual MFA in critical studies/writing and music composition from the California Institute of the Arts.
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Salesforce is an American technology company that develops cloud-based software for customer relationship management and related business applications. Its services are sold primarily through a software-as-a-service subscription model. Founded in 1999 as salesforce.com by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff and three others, the San Francisco company changed its legal name to Salesforce, Inc. in 2022. Salesforce is the worldâs largest provider of CRM software.
How did Salesforceâs subscription model change customer relationship management software for businesses?
Salesforce offered customer relationship management software over the Internet instead of requiring customers to buy software licenses and run the systems on their own computers. At the time, traditional CRM systems often required substantial spending on hardware, installation, maintenance, and technical support. Salesforce shifted much of that responsibility to the software provider, helping popularize what became known as software-as-a-service.
How did Slack expand Salesforceâs communication capabilities?
Salesforce acquired Slack Technologies, a workplace messaging and collaboration company, for about $28 billion in July 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic led more people to work from home. Salesforce already had a communication tool called Chatter, but it operated primarily within the companyâs own software. Slack allowed employees to exchange messages, share files, and collaborate using different applications.
Salesforce (CRM) is an American technology company best known for developing cloud-based software for customer relationship management and related business applications delivered through a software-as-a-service subscription model. The company changed its legal name to Salesforce, Inc. from salesforce.com, inc. effective April 4, 2022.
Founded in 1999 by American entrepreneur and former Oracle (ORCL) executive Marc Benioff and three others as salesforce.com, the San Francisco company differentiated itself from its competitors by offering cloud-based services as an alternative to packaged software and hardware systems.
Key products and services
In 2025, Salesforce was the largest global provider of customer relationship management services, with a 20% share of the global market. Its revenue from customer relationship management software in 2024 exceeded that of its next four largest competitorsâOracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT), Adobe (ADBE), and SAP (SAP)âcombined. Its most widely used products include:
Sales and customer service. Sales Cloud helps businesses track potential customers and manage sales, while Service Cloud provides tools for managing customer service.
Marketing and e-commerce. Marketing Cloud provides tools for creating and managing digital marketing campaigns, while Commerce Cloud supports online retail operations.
Data analytics and integration. Tableau and CRM Analytics (formerly Tableau CRM) provide tools for analyzing business data and presenting it in charts and graphs. MuleSoft connects different business software systems, while Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud) consolidates customer data from multiple sources.
Artificial intelligence and automation. Agentforce is Salesforceâs AI platform for creating agents that can perform tasks in sales, customer service, and other business operations.
Communication and collaboration.Slack allows employees to exchange messages, share files, and collaborate using various applications.
Foundation, launch, and the dot-com bubble (1999â2001)
Salesforce was founded in San Francisco in 1999 with the goal of changing how businesses managed customer relationships by automating sales processes and delivering software over the Internet.
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Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was an early proponent of integrating AI into business software.
At the time of Salesforceâs inception, cloud-based CRM technologies were largely overlooked. They were deemed a âfadâ technology, best suited for start-ups and small businesses but not enterprise-level operations because of their lack of scalability.
At the time, businesses typically purchased CRM software licenses and installed the software on their own computer systems. Integrating it with existing systems often required additional spending on hardware, installation, maintenance, and technical support.
In 2000, Salesforce launched its first cloud-based and software-as-a-service CRM platform. The timing was unfortunate, as it coincided with the dot-com bubble and subsequent crash. When the economy fell into a recession in 2001, many of Salesforceâs clients were wiped out. Despite having to lay off 20% of its workforce (of 40 employees), Salesforce managed to survive the economic downturn, taking in an annual revenue of $5.4 million in the 2000 fiscal year.
The following year, Salesforce upgraded its platform with enhanced automation for sales, marketing, and customer service and support. While in only its second year of operation, Salesforce was awarded InfoWorldâs Top 10 CRM Technology of the Year. That year also marked the companyâs entry into the international market, as it opened new headquarters in Dublin and Tokyo. Having surpassed 3,000 B2B customers, Salesforce became, as Morgan Stanley acknowledged, the âfastest growing online CRM company.â Its annual revenue that fiscal year jumped to $22.4 million.
Growth and expansion (2002â2006)
In 2002, Salesforce introduced CRM Enterprise Edition, adding new features to its software. The company continued its international expansion, and by 2003, its workforce had grown to more than 400 employees. In 2004, Salesforce held an initial public offering (IPO), and its shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol CRM.
In 2005, Salesforce launched AppExchange, an online marketplace where third-party developers could offer applications to Salesforce customers. The marketplace allowed businesses to add features and customize their Salesforce software to meet their needs.
Platform customization and revenue milestones (2007â2010)
Salesforce faced growing competition from other providers of cloud-based business software, including Zoho, RightNow Technologies, NetSuite, and Salesnet.
In response, Salesforce introduced Force.com, a cloud-based development platform that allowed businesses to build applications tailored to their needs. Together with AppExchange, which offered applications developed by third parties, Force.com gave Salesforce customers more ways to customize their software.
Salesforce expanded its software development capabilities in 2010 with the acquisition of Heroku, a platform-as-a-service provider. Unlike software-as-a-service, which gives customers access to applications over the Internet, platform-as-a-service provides developers with the tools and infrastructure to build and run their own applications.
Salesforce joined the S&P 500 in 2008 and became the first cloud-computing company to exceed $1 billion in annual revenue in 2009. Its workforce grew to 4,750 employees, and its Force.com platform hosted 185,000 custom applications.
Productivity, digital marketing, and the Fortune 500 (2011â2015)
In 2011, Salesforce launched Chatter, a communication tool within its CRM platform that enhanced an organizationâs capacity to connect, share files, and collaborate in real time. Although this marked a major advancement in enterprise collaboration, Salesforceâs more pivotal advance came a few years later when it acquired ExactTarget, a company that developed software for digital marketing analytics and automation.
Not only was this Salesforceâs largest acquisitionâpurchased for $2.5 billionâbut it also marked the companyâs foray into the marketing space. ExactTarget provided the technological foundation for what would later become Salesforceâs Marketing Cloud.
In 2011, Salesforce was neck and neck with Oracle in leading the global CRM industry. It also marked another strong consecutive year of revenue growth (37%). Two years later Salesforce would see its annual revenue surpass $3 billion. In 2015, it joined the Fortune 500 list.
CRM cloud leadership and artificial intelligence (2016â2019)
By 2016, Salesforce established its status as the worldâs leading CRM provider, having secured 18% of the global industry market shareâa substantial lead over its incumbent competitors Oracle (9.4%) and SAP (7.2%).
As cloud-based customer relationship management software became more widely used, Salesforce began incorporating artificial intelligence into its products. Its Einstein Analytics software used AI to analyze customer data, identify patterns, and help businesses predict customer behavior and automate routine tasks.
In 2019, Salesforce acquired Tableau, a company specializing in data visualization and business analytics.
Slack, generative AI, and sustainable growth (2020â )
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Salesforce added Slack to the conversationâand the portfolioâin 2021.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift to remote work, increasing demand for the cloud-based software and online collaboration tools that Salesforce provided.
In December 2020, Salesforce agreed to purchase Slack Technologies, the company behind the workplace messaging service Slack, in a deal valued at about $28 billion. The acquisition closed in July 2021. Salesforceâs existing communications tool, Chatter, was largely limited to its own platform, whereas Slack allowed workers to communicate and collaborate using other applications.
Over the years, Salesforce expanded beyond its original CRM business, developing software for industries such as financial services and health care and incorporating artificial intelligence into its products. Acquisitions also played a role in its growth. In 2025, Salesforce acquired Informatica, a data management software company, and in October 2026, it agreed to acquire Braze, whose software helps businesses communicate with customers through email, mobile apps, and websites.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Karl Montevirgen
