Salesforce.com's first quarterly results since going
public showed income of $1.2m (£655,000) on revenue of $40.6m for
the period ended 31 July.
The hosted CRM services supplier added 21,000 paying subscribers
during the quarter, bringing its total to 168,000 companies.
That growth prompted the company to slightly raise its revenue
expectations for the year ending 31 January 2005. It now
anticipates revenue of between $165m and $170m.
The second quarter results edged past the $39.7m in revenue
expected by analysts polled by Thomson First Call. Salesforce.com
met per-share earnings expectations, with earnings of $0.01.
The newly public company has an disproportionate impact on the
CRM market. While its sales are small compared to those of market
leaders like Siebel, Salesforce.com targets the rapidly growing
market of small companies shopping for sales and customer support
management software.
Its growth, shadowed by that of rivals like NetSuite and
Salesnet, has prompted nearly every supplier in the CRM market to
re-evaluate how it approaches small and medium-sized
businesses.
Salesforce.com chairman and chief executive Marc Benioff said
that Salesforce.com's growth during the quarter stood "in stark
contrast to traditional enterprise software companies", which
continue to struggle.
He also criticised Salesforce.com's most visible rival, Siebel,
for not disclosing its customer base and growth. Siebel, which
holds the largest share of the traditional CRM software market,
started a hosted subscription service last year, Siebel CRM
OnDemand, to compete head-to-head with Salesforce.com.
Siebel does not officially discuss its CRM OnDemand results, and
company spokespeople refuse to release customer numbers, but Siebel
executive vice-president David Schmaier said in May that the
service had signed on 1,400 companies.
Benioff said Salesforce.com rarely encounters Siebel while
competing for new business. "[Seibel has] run a huge advertising
campaign, but it just has not delivered, in our market," Benioff
said.
Stacy Cowley writes for IDG News Service