On the last day of February, Salesforce.com Inc. CEO Marc Benioff welcomed guests to his fourth annual "Freedom From Software Celebration," a party held at Carnegie Hall in New York along with a fund-raiser for one of his favorite Tibetan charities.

On the same day, Salesforce closed out its first profitable month -- on the way to its first profitable quarter, according to the customer-relationship management company -- and revealed a deal with America Online that will help it reach that goal. Several hundred sales and marketing staff in AOL's interactive marketing group will begin using Salesforce.com Enterprise Edition, an online CRM product.

The customer win helps bolster Salesforce's bid for more and larger customers. Salesforce doesn't cater solely to small businesses; sales are divided equally between businesses with less than $500 million in revenue and those with more than $500 million, Benioff says. "We have seen perfect growth in all markets," he says.

Some of the company's success is because of the rough economy, Benioff says; many companies don't have the money or personnel to manage large software implementations, so they turn to Salesforce's cheaper hosted system.