Runner-up: CTO of Salesforce.com

Dave Moellenhoff, CTO of San Francisco-based Salesforce.com, has helped to build an application utility company that boasts 6,000 customers and 80,000 users in 110 countries. Revenues for this year are on pace to exceed $100 million and the company has reached profitability just three years after going live. Moellenhoff credits one technology in particular for this success. “Web services is proving to be a very viable business model indeed,” he says.

As CTO, Moellenhoff is responsible for developing the vision of software as utility, offering CRM and other applications to enterprises through an Internet-based delivery model.

Despite considerable enterprise success, Moellenhoff says his biggest challenge in the next six months will be to fight misperceptions about hosted solutions in the marketplace. “On one side, a persistent but vocal minority clings to the outdated and, frankly, disproved belief that online CRM is not feasible or viable for large companies,” he says. But he also points out that other CRM vendors are rushing to create their own online alternatives.

What technologies is he keeping an eye on for the future? “One word: wireless,” he says. “We are finally seeing the dawn of usability of cell phones and wireless devices in the United States. And of course almost all of our large European customers rely heavily on mobile technologies. We have worked hard to ensure access from all devices and applications. … Our goal is to continue to meet the need of our customers to do business anytime, anywhere, regardless of connectivity type.”