Salesforce.com makes financial services push

Speaking to press, analysts and customers in New York, Marc Benioff, the San Francisco-based company's CEO, laid out the strategy bluntly as Salesforce.com prepares to take on Bloomberg, which provides real-time news, market data and analysis to financial advisors.

"We think it's an industry ripe for change," Benioff said, pointing to what he called the museum of financial services in the corner -- an abacus, an adding machine and a Bloomberg workstation. "We're evolving to focus on the financial services industry."

Salesforce.com calls the new edition "the next-generation desktop" for financial advisors. Its CRM technology is combined with mashups from management and financial services partners and offers client tracking information, team calendaring, client action plans and household management tools to understand the household profile of clients in a single view.

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The service is a direct shot at Bloomberg, which charges $1,500 per month for a terminal and data services. Salesforce.com Wealth Management costs $500 per month.

The Wealth Management edition becomes Salesforce.com's first industry-specific application. To date, the company had let customers and partners on its acquired by RightNow, introduced vertical on-demand editions for insurance, high tech, automobile, communications and media.

Financial services has been an early adopter and big spender when it comes to CRM technology. Salesforce.com has obviously seen some opportunity there, releasing a tool from Okere as part of its Tags: SaaS CRM and CRM on demand vendors, Vertical CRM software, VIEW ALL TAGS