With the ongoing consolidation of the software industry, it's becoming rare to see an independent company with annual revenues of $1 billion. But based on Salesforce.com's revenue run rate, CEO Marc Benioff predicts the company will hit that mark within a year.

Salesforce.com announced net income for its third fiscal 2008 quarter of $6.51 million, up from $339,000 from last year's third quarter. Revenue for the quarter was up 48% to $193 million.

"At this rate, we expect to push well past the $800 million revenue run rate in Q4, and we are now on track to become the first ever on-demand company to exceed $1 billion in annual revenue in our fiscal '09," said Benioff in a prepared statement.

That is, of course, if Salesforce.com remains independent over the next year. Companies like Oracle, SAP, and IBM have pulled off a number of multi-billion-dollar acquisitions in recent months in hot markets like business intelligence. Software-as-a-service is also of high interest, but so far Salesforce.com has dominated mind share for that form of software delivery.

In an InformationWeek interview in May, Benioff said, "We're probably too big for SAP. It's hard to say [about other possible suitors]. We're a very different company, very unique. Whether it's our distribution model or our philanthropy model, it's very different than a traditional software company. It would take a lot of work." Benioff wouldn't comment on a question about whether the company has been approached by Oracle about an acquisition.

Salesforce.com reported that it added approximately 2,800 paying customers in the quarter to a total of 38,100 customers, up 41% from last year's third quarter and 8% from this year's second quarter.