Salesforce doubles earnings with bumper year

Salesforce has enjoyed a strong third quarter

Salesforce has announced positive financial results for its third quarter, showing a year-on-year doubling of earnings to just over $330m (£198).

The software-as-a-service firm announced a profit of $20.7m (£12.4m), or 16 cents per share, a significant increase from the $10.1m (£6m), or eight cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue for the quarter ending 31 October reached $330.5m, a 20 per cent increase on the $276.5m reported last year.

"We are pleased to report record revenue, profit and customer additions in the third quarter," said Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff in a statement.

"This gives us fantastic momentum as we head into Dreamforce, where we will announce our biggest product news of the year."

Benioff was referring to the release of Salesforce Chatter, which will be available to customers in 2010.

This year's Dreamforce conference was Salesforce's largest with 19,000 attendees.