In 2012 salesforce.com, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) bought five companies, in 2011 the company had pulled seven different companies into its orbit. News revealed this morning at allthingsd.com, reported that the company has made its first purchase of 2013. A study of LinkedIn revealed that Salesforce.com bought French software company, Entropysoft.
Salesforce.com announced, in the fourth quarter of last year, that it does not expect to make a GAAP profit any time soon. There have been problems with acquisitions made by the company in the past and some have questioned whether its business is sustainable at all.
The news was revealed by carefully watching the LinkedIn profiles of employees of the French company. People associated with the firm began switching their affiliations last night, this morning saw a slew of the French company’s talent change their profiles to reflect the change in ownership. The news, if recent years are any guide, may be the first of many acquisitions salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) will make in 2013.
Entropysoft specializes in software that manages web content for enterprise customers. It’s not exactly clear how the company’s patents will fit into the service offered by sales force, but at an estimated $3.5 million, the purchase will not put much of a dent in the company’s accounts, though investors may wonder what the company is planning to do with all of its acquisitions.
Despite questions about the basics of the company’s business model, the firm’s shares are doing extremely well. In the last twelve months, the firm’s shares have risen by more than 40%, and its five year growth is comparable to that of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). The firm’s shares are 230% higher than they were half a decade ago, while Apple shares are currently trading about 240% above its 2008 levels.
In that time Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has managed to revolutionize the smart phone industry, change the computer industry entirely with the iPad, and become one of the most valuable companies in the world. In the same period, salesforce.com has not performed quite as well, but its share price has grown at the same rate.
On today’s market, investors punished the firm sending shares down by a small fraction. The sector that the company works in, enterprise software solutions, is a massively growing one that has a huge amount of potential going forward. salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) investors will hope the company can capitalize on that market, despite growing competition.
