Salesforce

Salesforce sells cloud software for managing customer relationships. Marc Benioff, Parker Harris and others founded it in 1999 in San Francisco. It was an early example of software delivered over the web as a subscription instead of installed on a company's own computers.

Its main product is Sales Cloud, a customer relationship management system. Service Cloud handles support cases, and Marketing Cloud covers email and advertising campaigns. Companies can also build their own applications on the Salesforce platform.

The company has made several large acquisitions. These include Tableau for data analysis, MuleSoft for system integration and Slack for team messaging. Agentforce is its product line for AI agents that work inside customer workflows. The headquarters is Salesforce Tower in San Francisco. Marc Benioff remains chair and chief executive. The company holds a large annual conference called Dreamforce in San Francisco and works with a big network of consultants and software partners. It also gives a share of its time, equity and product to charity under what it calls the 1-1-1 model.