Jeremy Cox, Principal Analyst, Customer Engagement, Madan Shaina, Lead Analyst, Information Management Software

Salesforce.com grew by 33% year-on-year in its fiscal year 2014, breaking the $4bn mark. It was involved in larger transactions, several of which broke the $10m ceiling. At the earnings call in February 2014, the company’s chairman and CEO, Marc Benioff, was clearly feeling bullish about the immediate future; he delivered a forecast that the company would grow by approximately 30% to $5.3bn over the coming year.

No other software company of this magnitude is growing as fast, but there are concerns around profitability and the increasingly competitive environment, as major vendors flesh out their cloud-based offerings.

Salesforce.com’s evangelism about the “Internet of Customers” pays off

As Salesforce.com continues to fund its growth at the expense of short-term profits, Marc Benioff’s evangelism about the “customer company” and Salesforce1 as the …