Salesforce is hailed as one of the strongest IT companies in the world today. It all started with an unconventional idea that evolved into a great concept, which subsequently changed the face of business and customer service.
Travel back in time and check out this brief history of Salesforce.com. Let us trace its beginnings until the time it rose to business and IT fame.
Humble Beginnings
Marc Benioff started it all with an unconventional idea: What if business software programs can be created and delivered in a different, less complicated, and cost-efficient way? What if selling a software is as easy as buying products on Amazon.com?
Driven by this idea, Marc worked alongside colleagues Dave Moellenhoff, Parker Harris, and Frank Dominguez to bring Software-as-a-Service to life. They started developing programs inside a small rented apartment in March 1999.
Salesforce Debuts
Benioff’s team created Salesforce, a customer relationship management program. The software runs in the cloud and is offered over the internet through monthly payments. This software-as-a-service (SaaS) concept debuted in 1999 and was seen as a breakthrough because now, people can afford to buy software that’s cheaper, easier to use, and faster to maintain without the licensing agreements and on-premise servers.
And Salesforce Flourishes
In June 2004, Salesforce went full-force on the public eye. The company became visible on the stock market, and it launched more products and services such as Service Cloud, Community Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Sales Cloud.
The company went on to create a platform where their users can make their own programs and run them on the cloud. This was billed as the Salesforce App Cloud and it has become one of the widely-used Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) today.
Salesforce further flourished in its business due to its acquisition of a number of companies, most notably the following:
- Heroku
- MetaMind
- SteelBrick
- Krux
- CloudCraze LLC
- Quip
- MuleSoft
Various new features have been added to Salesforce products as a result of these company acquisitions. Some of them include the Integration Cloud and the artificial intelligence arm of the company, Salesforce Einstein.
Salesforce Never Stops
Salesforce has become active across the Americas and in Europe. But their success doesn’t stop here. The company sets its eyes to expand their operations in Asia and the Middle East.
With so much exciting things to offer for entrepreneurs and other customers, Salesforce never stops developing new programs and continues to educate the public about the importance of technology, good business ethics, and customer satisfaction.
To sum it all up, Salesforce had its beginnings through Marc Benioff and his team in 1999. The company has flourished as a SaaS and PaaS provider since then. And now, it is among the most respected brands in the IT and business world.
Salesforce.com is proof that one idea can indeed change the way the world works.