The global on-demand CRM software market has grown rapidly in the last 5 years, from less than $500 million in 2005 to $2.3 billion in 2009, which represents an average annual growth rate of 46%. This compares to a single-digit growth rate for on-premise CRM software.

The reasons behind the tremendous growth in on-demand CRM software are the speed and ease of implementation, the low total cost of ownership and cost-effective benefits for customers, and the ease of integration with existing applications. Salesforce.com is one company that specializes in delivering CRM software on-demand. It is expected to benefit more than its competitors from the continued strength in cloud-based CRM software, with the majority of its market share growth likely coming at the expense of rival SAP, whose market share has declined over the last three years.

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Intuit's Quickbooks is the top-selling small business accounting software, and Salesforce.com sets the standard for small business CRM software. So when the two companies decided to join forces, it appeared to be a match made in business heaven. The partnership will produce versions of Saleforce.com's small business CRM that have been pre-integrated with Intuit QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online small business accounting software.

Intuit will make these editions available in its App Center. Data will be automatically synched across Quickbooks and Salesforce, giving customers real-time, unified views of the data when working in either application. Now small businesses will be able to get this synchronization without having to buy an additional integration service or solution, which will save them between $50 to $75 a month. The integrated versions are expected to be available this summer.

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Commence Corporation is a provider of CRM software for mid-size and small enterprises. The company has announced t hat they are releasing a CRM Best Practices E-book that can be downloaded for free from their website. This E-book is designed to provide guidance for businesses in today's challenging competitive environment of strategic sourcing contracts, online purchasing, customer pressure for self-service and debates over fee-based services.

To thrive in this environment, businesses need more than leading CRM technology to succeed. For this reason, the E-book contains a compendium of more than 40 smart business practices, which have been sourced from interviews with leading executives in high growth companies. The IT investments of sales departments are often wasted due to failed implementations and lack of structure. Based on extensive experience, Commence believes that the only path to successful selling is to first develop a consistent marketing and sales process, and then to utilize these processes in a disciplined manner.

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