Strong Sales Spark Salesforce.com

The software services provider's shares rose Tuesday after it upped its revenue forecast

Salesforce.com's (CRM) shares gained on Dec. 12, after the software services provider hiked its forecasts on sales for 2008.

The San Francisco company now expects revenue to be in the range of $710 million to $720 million for its fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2008. On Nov. 15, 2006, Salesforce.com said that it expected revenue to be between $700 million and $710 million.

The mean analyst estimate for fiscal year 2008 revenue had been $710.9 million, according to the San Francisco research firm StarMine, which aggregates data from Thomson Financial. Salesforce.com stock rose 3.9% to $40.06 per share in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Salesforce.com sees growing business from its computer software application sharing service AppExchange. On Dec. 12 the company announced a strategy to provide customers with a single source called "AppStore" for trying, buying, and deploying AppExchange applications. Salesforce.com hopes that AppStore will make purchasing on-demand applications as easy as buying music on Apple's online music store iTunes.

"The continued momentum of our AppExchange ecosystem is creating expanded business opportunities for Salesforce.com," said CEO Marc Benioff. "In connection with the announcement of our AppStore strategy today which we will roll out in phases over the next 12 months, we are raising our revenue expectations for fiscal year 2008."

After the announcement, Standard & Poor's Equity Research (like BusinessWeek.com, a unit of The McGraw-Hill Cos.) nudged its target price on the stock higher by $1 to $37, but maintained its sell rating.