Think back to what CRM used to be: Ten years ago, the technology was too big, too slow, too expensive. And then along came Salesforce.com, with an offer seemingly too good to be true: software-as-a-service, magically delivered via the Internet. Just the right size, just the right speed, just the right cost. 

No one believed Salesforce.com would fulfill its promises. No one believed a revolution had begun. No one believed that CRM—and every other enterprise technology under the sun—could be anything other than lumbering and slow and expensive. 

Ten years ago, Salesforce.com was barely an idea. Today, with more than a million users and more than a billion dollars in annual revenue, it’s helped alter our very notion of what technology is and can be. 

This month’s issue of CRM is an examination of how Salesforce.com covered so much distance in such a short time—and a warning of sorts about the nature of change.  

Ten years ago, Siebel Systems defined the boundaries of CRM. Salesforce.com defied those boundaries—and then demolished them. That’s what it was built for—to foment a revolution. 

But what happens after the revolution?    —The Editors of CRM magazine

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For the rest of the November 2009 issue of CRM magazine — a look back at the first 10 years of Salesforce.com — please click here.

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