It's always educational to see who is making money when everybody else is not. In the retail business for example, dollar stores and discounters are raking it in. Bill collectors are going great guns in the down economy, and purveyors of get-rich-quick schemes are probably doing a little more business than usual these days. Detroit car companies aren't selling many SUVs, but they've got their hands out for a little corporate welfare, so they'll do okay too, at least for the time being.

But in the tech business, who's making money and who's not may well influence the future of the industry. Salesforce.com is among those who are, and are by all accounts confident about the future. For the last quarter, their income was reported at eight cents per share, compared to five cents for the year-ago quarter. The eight cents even beat the expectations of Wall Street, which had predicted seven cents. The cmpany had record revenues fror the quarter, and all of the financial metrics are up for this powerhouse company. The company is also issuing positive guidance for next quarter and next fiscal year, expecting continuing good performance.

There's a striking contrast between companies like Salesforce, which offer software-as-a-service solutions, and traditional enterprise software companies. Implementing Salesforce, as is the case with most SaaS offerings, requires a lot less in upfront expenditures, while enterprise software calls for a large capital investment--and that makes a big difference in a recession. SaaS has a lot of momentum to begin with, and the current recession may well give it the extra push it needs to put this technology on top.

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