Salesforce.com, one of the most disruptive technology companies of the past few years

Salesforce.com, one of the most disruptive technology companies of the past few years, has single-handedly shaken up the software industry with its innovative business model and resounding success. Salesforce provides customer relationship management (CRM) and other application software solutions in the form of software as a sendee leased over the Internet, as opposed to software bought and installed on machines locally.

The company was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, and has since grown to over 3,900 employees, 82,400 corporate customers, and 2.1 million subscribers. It earned $1.3 billion in revenue in 2009, making it one of the top 50 software companies in the world. Salesforce attributes its success to the many benefits of its on-demand model of software distribution.