Sales Force Automation - Current Systems

Sales force automation started as CRM. Salesforce.com now given as the top most position in Magic Quadrant of Garnter for 2011 was started in 1999 and launched its CRM online application in 2000. By end of January 2011, it acquired 1500 customers. Wireless capabilities were added in 2002. Channel management capability added in 2006. Call Center module was added in 2008. Applications for Twitter, Iphone were added in 2009. 104,000 customers are now using Salesforce.com products and millions of subscribers are using them.

Gartner's Magic Quadrant - 2011


Leaders

Salesforce.com
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Oracle CRM on Demand
Oracle Siebel CRM

Challengers

SAP
Sage Sales Logix


Visionaries

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

Niche Players

NetSuite
SageACT
CDC Software
SugarCRM
Zoho



 References:
Salesforce.com History
http://www.salesforce.com/company/milestones/

Magic Quadrant - Gartner - 14 July  2011
http://www.gartner.com/technology/media-products/reprints/microsoft/vol14/article23/article23.html