Hosted customer relationship management (CRM) provider Salesforce.com claims to have signed up almost four times as many subscribers as Siebel CRM OnDemand during a 15-month period. The fast-growing software firm, which employs 60 people at its European headquarters in Dublin, also claims to have the most popular hosted CRM solution on the market.
While Siebel remains the world leader in CRM, Salesforce.com claims outright leadership of the expanding market for hosted CRM applications. This is an alternative to the traditional licensing method of acquiring software whereby the supplier actually hosts the application on its servers and its customers access their CRM application over a web browser rather than pay a per-user licence.
“Traditional software companies are increasingly responding to market pressures and potential opportunities with offerings designed to compete with on-demand alternatives,” noted Amy Konary, programme director for software pricing, licensing and delivery at IDC.
With a total of more than 13,300 customers and 214,000 subscribers as of 31 December 2004, Salesforce.com claims to be the world’s most widely used on-demand CRM solution. From the beginning of Q4 2003 to the end of Q4 2004 Salesforce.com added approximately 111,000 subscribers compared to more than 28,000 added by Siebel during the same period.
Already more than 12,000 businesses, from small office/home office operations to giant blue-chip multinationals such as Cisco have signed up to Salesforce.com. Total paying subscriber numbers on the service mounts up to 185,000, which each pay €70 for the service. Irish customers include Am-beo, Cape Clear and Jurys Doyle Hotel Group.
By Brian Skelly
