What? I just stumbled across this new product from Salesforce.com. It appears the online CRM giant is jumping into our industry with both feet. This is great news.

I guess, technically, they have been in our industry for some time through the use of add-ons but now they are making a real push. They are releasing the version of their system that they co-developed with Merrill Lynch built specifically for wealth managers.

It’s currently in the beta phase and should be released in Q3 publicly. Apparently they are working with E-trade, Ameritrade and Morgan Stanley in the beta period.

It appears that this application is written on their newly released Apex platform. Supposedly its better than Siebel on the high end and ACT on the low end.

Get ready for this, it only costs $500 per seat per month. So for $6,000 per employee per year you to can have this software. Obviously, they have a lot to learn about our industry.

Still, it’s great news, the big boys are starting to try and find value in our segment. Hopefully the software price will come down once they get out of the love with large Broker Dealer phase.

If you havn’t used Salesforce.com, you should sign up for a demo and really check it out. It’s a good CRM for shops of all sizes and generally it’s pricing for the normal CRM edition is not way out of line. It’s very flexible and highly customizable.