Salesforce.com 2009 Annual Report Download - page 14

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Table of Contents
• Web site development to engage and educate prospects and generate interest through product information and demonstrations, free trials, case
studies, white papers, and marketing collateral;
• email, direct mail, and phone campaigns to capture leads that can be funneled into our sales organization;
• use of customer testimonials; and
• sales tools and field marketing events to enable our sales organization to more effectively convert pipeline into completed transactions.
Customer Service and Support
Our global customer support group responds to both business and technical inquires from our customers relating to how to use our products and is
available to customers by the web, telephone and email.
Basic customer support during business hours is available at no charge to customers who purchase any of our paying editions. Premier customer support
includes extended availability and additional services, such as an assigned support representative and/or administrator. Premier customer support is available
for a separate fee, or is included in our Unlimited Edition. Additional support services include developer support and partner support.
International Sales
We generate approximately 30 percent of our total revenues from customers in Europe and Asia Pacific, including Japan. We expect international
markets to provide increased opportunities for our applications and services in the future. Our current international efforts are focused on strengthening our
direct sales and marketing presence outside of North America, and generating more revenues from these regions.
Seasonality
Our fourth quarter has historically been our strongest quarter for new business. For a more detailed discussion, see the "Seasonal Nature of Deferred
Revenue and Accounts Receivable" discussion in Management's Discussion and Analysis.
Competition
The market for enterprise CRM business applications and development platforms is highly competitive, rapidly evolving and fragmented, and subject to
changing technology, shifting customer needs and frequent introductions of new products and services. Many prospective customers have invested substantial
personnel and financial resources to implement and integrate traditional enterprise software into their businesses, and therefore may be reluctant or unwilling
to migrate to an enterprise cloud computing application service. Additionally, third party developers may be reluctant to build application services on our
platform since they have invested significantly in other competing technology products.
We compete primarily with vendors of packaged CRM software, whose software is installed by the customer directly, and companies offering on-
demand CRM applications. We also compete with internally developed applications and face, or expect to face, competition from enterprise software vendors
and online service providers who may develop toolsets and products that allow customers to build new applications that run on the customers' current
infrastructure or as hosted services. Our current principal competitors include:
• enterprise software application vendors including Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, and SAP AG;
• on-demand CRM application service providers such as Microsoft Corporation, NetSuite, Inc., Oracle Corporation, RightNow Technologies, Inc.
and SAP AG.;
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