Salesforce expands from CRM to cloud platform (1999-2018)
Salesforce launched in 1999 as a web-based customer relationship management tool. Over two decades it expanded through acquisitions into email marketing, e-commerce, analytics, and messaging, absorbing functions that once required separate vendors.
Customers consolidated their software spending on Salesforce, and vendors of standalone sales tools lost market share.
Salesforce demonstrated that a platform with a dominant base function can move into adjacent markets and set the pace for enterprise software.
Apollo is expanding from prospecting data into intelligence and execution, following the same platform consolidation playbook but building with AI rather than acquisitions.
