Salesforce.com revolutionized the way enterprise applications run. It’s founder Mark Benioff could foresee the future in a way very few others could when he started a software company, in 1999, which would build enterprise software that would run completely on cloud. The tag line of the company then was on the lines of NO SOFTWARE, meaning no installable; everything would be working on the internet. It was unthinkable then that one could build enterprise applications that would run only on internet. Saying the internet speed those days were not good, will only be an understatement.
| Year |
Internet speed |
| 1986 | Maximum of 56 Kbps. |
| 1991 | Maximum of 45 Mbps. |
| 1994 | Maximum of 145 Mbps. A low quality movie (700 MB) would take 28 hours at full speed but 3-5 days at low speed. |
| 2000 | Maximum of 155 Mbps. You would be lucky to get a speed of 5 Mbps during day time. |
| 2018 | Average download speeds can be close to 100 Mbps with major ISPs. |
Source: Various sources, gossip, internet search, blog posts, I was just there to know it.
When I started working on the salesforce platform in 2008, I was not very sure of my career move but it has paid off. I am grateful to the company, its founders and my fate that salesforce has done outstandingly well; I would bet that even Benioff wouldn’t have expected it do so well when he started it. Over the years, salesforce has grown leaps and bounds to become the #1 CRM platform. Siebel, it’s primary competitor during salesforce’s early years is nowhere close to salesforce now. Microsoft Dynamics seems to be worthy competitor, coming a distant second in most surveys.
Salesforce Force Automation is the flagship solution offered by salesforce.com. Salesforce’s product offerings have grown both organically and inorganically with many acquisitions. The main current product offerings are – Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud for B2C, Pardot (Marketing) for B2B, Integration (Mulesoft), Analytics, Automation Enabling products, and a few Industry Specific bundles.
Salesforce’s current revenue is ~ 10.5 billion dollars and Benioff has a bullish target of 20 billion dollars by 2022. If you are associated with salesforce in any way, it’s a great place to be in.
| Year | Revenue |
| in mil. USD$ | |
| 2005 | 176 |
| 2010 | 1,306 |
| 2014 | 4,071 |
| 2016 | 6,667 |
| 2018 | 10,480 |
| 2022 | projected 20,000 |
Source: mostly wikipedia.org
You want to know more on salesforce but don’t have much time, want to salesforce jargons to sound intelligent, want to know salesforce tips and tricks, be cognizant of common pitfalls – keep plugged in. My friends and I shall write a few posts, covering the nitty-gritty of salesforce implementations and related technologies.
The next post will be an overview of salesforce’s architecture and what makes it unique.
never not now 
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