If a cloud computing museum ever opens up, Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) will have its own wing. The company, after all, pushed the revolution along when it won over tens of thousands of corporate clients to its cheaper, server-stored enterprise software solutions.
Well, Salesforce apparently wants more than just a wing. It's going for the drumstick, too.
Salesforce is launching Force.com Sites today, a venture that finds the company hosting third-party sites and applications on its proven cloud platform. It makes perfect sense. Salesforce now manages customer information for 47,700 companies. It's not just a thick Rolodex of smalltime upstarts. Salesforce clients include heavyweights like Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) and SunTrust Banks (NYSE:STI).
Unfortunately, hosting a client's Facebook app or booking engine is no easy feat, given the overly crowded realm of cloud computing hosts clamoring for the business. Software top dog Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) introduced Azure last week, willing to butt heads against IT-friendly juggernaut Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and web-hosting giant Rackspace (NYSE:RAX).
Any company with a reliable army of servers like Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM) is a potential challenger down the road.
This doesn't mean that Salesforce is ignorant in entering such a crowded niche. Cloud computing is a Salesforce birthright. However, the real factor that will determine the company's success here won't be the thickness of its Rolodex as much as the loyalty of the names on it.
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