By Jessica Hodgson Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- Salesforce.com Inc.(CRM), the online business-services company, can take advantage of the current economic conditions to win market share, Chief Executive Marc Benioff said Thursday following the release of its third-quarter results.
Benioff said the San Francisco company's sales had strengthened during the quarter, with September sales exceeding August sales, going against the trend elsewhere in the tech industry.
Benioff said he believed the company's business model, in which customers pay for just the applications they use on an ongoing basis, rather than paying large upfront costs, was helping it win business from rivals in the traditional, on-premise applications space.
"We're not tied to the large end-of-quarter deals that define enterprise customers," he said.
For the period ended Oct. 31, the company posted net income of $10.1 million, or 8 cents a share, up from $6.51 million, or 5 cents a share, a year earlier.
Revenue jumped 43% to $276.5 million, helped by subscription and support sales.
-By Jessica Hodgson, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-439-6455; jessica.hodgson@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 20, 2008 17:43 ET (22:43 GMT)

Publié le 20 novembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones