Marc Benioff

Marc Russell Benioff (born September 25, 1964, San Francisco, California) is Chairman & CEO of Salesforce.com, the leading enterprise Cloud Computing company.

Benioff started salesforce.com in March 1999 in a rented San Francisco apartment and defined its mission as The End of Software. He is “credited with turning the software industry on its head” by using the Internet to “revamp the way software programs are designed and distributed.” He has long evangelized software-as-a-service as the model that would replace traditional enterprise software. He is the creator of the term “platform-as-a-service” and has extended salesforce.com’s reach by allowing customers to build their own applications on the company’s architecture, or in the salesforce.com “cloud”. He’s known for his willingness to take on very large competitors, frequently making outspoken remarks such as: "Part of our mission is to end Microsoft."  He is the author of three books, including the national best seller Behind the Cloud.

Oracle Buying Taleo for $1.9B as Cloud War Brews

Oracle Corp agreed to buy Taleo Corp, a maker of Web-based software for recruiting employees, for about $1.9 billion, as technology giants battle for the top spot in the fast-growing cloud computing market.

Salesforce.com Enters HR Software Business

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Salesforce.com said it agreed to acquire Radian6, a social media monitoring platform, for about $326 million in cash and stock deal a move that will help Salesforce to effectively market its cloud-based products.

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The top after-market NYSE gainers on Thursday are Office Depot, Accenture, Salesforce.com and American Express. The top after market NYSE most active stocks are Citigroup, Boston Scientific, Sprint Nextel Corporation and Bank of America.