Salesforce Inc.

Overview

Salesforce operates across several enterprise software categories: CRM, sales force automation, marketing automation, digital commerce, customer service, data integration (via MuleSoft), business intelligence (via Tableau), team collaboration (via Slack), and agentic AI (via Agentforce). Its core revenue model is subscription-based; subscription and support revenues accounted for approximately 94% of total revenue in fiscal year 2025. [1] The company sells directly and through a partner ecosystem that includes system integrators, independent software vendors, and resellers. [2] Its AppExchange marketplace, launched in 2005, offers thousands of third-party applications that extend the core platform. [3] In 2024, Salesforce launched Agentforce, positioning the company in the emerging agentic AI category, where autonomous AI agents can execute multi-step business tasks alongside human workers. [4] As of fiscal year 2026 (ended January 31, 2026), Salesforce reported total revenue of $41.5 billion. [5]

History

Salesforce was incorporated on March 8, 1999, by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Frank Dominguez, and Dave Moellenhoff. [6] Benioff, a former Oracle SVP, sought to deliver CRM as a hosted, subscription-based service, challenging the prevailing on-premises software model. [7] Early seed funding included Benioff's personal capital and investment from Oracle's Larry Ellison. [8] The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CRM in 2004, raising $110 million. [9] In 2005, it launched AppExchange, one of the earliest enterprise application marketplaces. [3] Key acquisitions expanded the platform significantly: ExactTarget (marketing automation) was acquired in 2013 for approximately $2.5 billion [10]; MuleSoft (API integration) was acquired in 2018 for approximately $6.5 billion [11]; Tableau (data analytics) was acquired in 2019 for $15.7 billion [12]; and Slack (team collaboration) was acquired in December 2020 for $27.7 billion, the largest deal in company history at the time. [13] In September 2024, Salesforce acquired data management firm Own for $1.9 billion. [14] In April 2022, the company formally changed its legal name from "Salesforce.com, Inc." to "Salesforce, Inc." [15] In January 2023, the company announced a layoff of approximately 10% of staff, or about 8,000 positions, citing aggressive hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic. [16] Activist investor Elliott Management announced a significant stake in the company that same month. [17]

Market Position

According to IDC's 2025 Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker, Salesforce held a 20.7% share of the global CRM market in 2024, earning over $21.6 billion in CRM-specific revenue — more than Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, and SAP combined. [18] IDC has ranked Salesforce the number-one CRM provider for 12 consecutive years. [18] The global CRM applications market reached $80 billion in 2024, with the top ten vendors collectively accounting for 54.2% of the total market. [19] Salesforce's Sales Cloud has been recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation Platforms for 19 consecutive years as of August 2025. [20] Salesforce has also been named a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant reports for Multichannel Marketing Hubs (2024) [21], Digital Commerce (for the 10th consecutive year in 2025) [22], Customer Data Platforms (2025) [23], and Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms (2025). [24] As of fiscal year 2026, the company's remaining performance obligation stood at $72.4 billion, up 14% year-over-year, reflecting contracted future revenue. [5] Agentforce and Data Cloud combined annual recurring revenue reached nearly $1.4 billion as of Q3 FY26, up 114% year-over-year. [25]

Competition

The primary competitors in the CRM market are Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle CX, SAP CRM, Adobe Experience Cloud, HubSpot, and Zoho. [26] According to IDC data, as of 2025, Oracle has emerged as Salesforce's closest CRM competitor with approximately 4.1% market share, followed by Microsoft, Adobe, and SAP. [27] Microsoft Dynamics 365's primary competitive advantage is deep integration with the broader Microsoft ecosystem — including Office 365, Teams, Azure, and Power BI — making it particularly entrenched in organizations already committed to Microsoft infrastructure. [28] SAP and Oracle CRM products are similarly sticky within organizations running those vendors' ERP systems. [29] HubSpot competes more directly at the mid-market and SMB segments and offers a free CRM tier that Salesforce does not match. [30] TechTarget has noted that Salesforce functions as the "wild card" in the enterprise CRM market due to its historical adaptability to integrate with diverse back-office software stacks. [29] In the agentic AI sub-category, Microsoft Dynamics 365 is building autonomous capabilities into its Copilot Studio, while Oracle and SAP are embedding agents into their respective enterprise workflows, creating a new competitive front. [31]

Sources

1. Salesforce 2026 Revenue and Market Share Statistics — Backlinko, 2025-12-29
2. Salesforce: Number of Employees 2012-2026 | CRM — MacroTrends
3. Salesforce, Inc. | Cloud Computing, CRM, & Software | Britannica Money — Britannica Money
4. We're Salesforce, the #1 Agentic CRM. — Salesforce
5. Salesforce Delivers Record Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2026 Results — Salesforce Investor Relations, 2026-02-25
6. The History of Salesforce — Salesforce, 2025-12-16
7. Salesforce - Wikipedia — Wikipedia
8. What is Brief History of Salesforce Company? — PortersFiveForce.com, 2026-01-21
9. The History of Salesforce: A Year-by-Year Timeline — CRS Info Solutions, 2025-01-14
10. Compare top CRM systems: SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle — TechTarget
11. Salesforce agrees to buy MuleSoft in $6.5 billion deal — CNBC, 2018-03-20
12. Salesforce - Wikipedia (Tableau acquisition) — Wikipedia
13. Salesforce - Wikipedia (Slack acquisition) — Wikipedia
14. Salesforce - Wikipedia (Own acquisition) — Wikipedia
15. Salesforce - Wikipedia (legal name change) — Wikipedia
16. Salesforce - Wikipedia (2023 layoffs) — Wikipedia
17. Salesforce - Wikipedia (Elliott Management) — Wikipedia
18. Trends, Insights and Salesforce Market Share 2026 — TechnologyChecker, 2026-03-26
19. Top 10 CRM Software Vendors, Market Size and Forecast 2024-2029 — Apps Run The World, 2025-09-23
20. Salesforce Named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Sales Force Automation Platforms — Salesforce, 2025-08-25
21. Salesforce Recognized as a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Multichannel Marketing Hubs — Salesforce, 2024-11-13
22. Salesforce Placed in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce — Salesforce, 2025-11-12
23. Salesforce Named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Customer Data Platforms — Salesforce, 2025-04-01
24. Salesforce Named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms — Salesforce, 2025-08-05
25. Salesforce Delivers Record Third Quarter Fiscal 2026 Results Driven by Agentforce & Data 360 — Salesforce Investor Relations, 2025-12-03
26. Salesforce Statistics in 2025: Usage, Revenue, CRM Market Share — Cirrus Insight, 2026-01-16
27. Salesforce Extends Its CRM Market Lead, Oracle Now Its Closest Competitor — CX Foundation, 2026-06-10
28. Compare top CRM systems: SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle — TechTarget
29. Compare top CRM systems: SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle (SAP/Oracle stickiness) — TechTarget
30. HubSpot Market Share 2026: CRM Share, Revenue & Customers — Resonate HQ
31. Top 10 CRM Software Vendors, Market Size and Forecast 2024-2029 (agentic AI competition) — Apps Run The World, 2025-09-23