What makes Salesforce different to its competitors?

A few things set Salesforce apart from other CRMs out there. I think a good comparison would be like when the iPhone App marketplace first came out, and the Android team soon followed. The industry standard was set by Apple, but competitors soon came, and now we have formidable options from Android, Windows and others. The main distinguishers that Salesforce has right now are: 1 - App Marketplace 2 - Familiarity 3 - Speed of innovation 1 - App Marketplace - Salesforce has a huge library of addons and tools you can use. Many are free, and most are developed by large companies (adobe, docusign, etc). This gives the buyer a huge advantage in being able to tool salesforce in exactly the way they need it. There are also tons of reviews for each app (although the reviews have often times been gamed, which is why Salesforce no longer awards a customer choice award) - G2 crowd is doing an awesome job at leveling the reviews of great software so thats a huge win for people evaluating CRMs. 2 - Familiarity - Most people working in a sales or tech position are at least familiar with salesforce. This is like asking people what the advantage of using open office vs. microsoft office is. People know the shortcuts, they have gone through training and many have even gotten expertise in workflow rules, analytics and dashboards. Sure, other CRMs are powerful, better looking or have some strengths that Salesforce might not have, but the sheer volume of companies, employees, and individuals who have worked with Salesforce in some capacity is an asset. I personally have worked at 5 companies who have used Salesforce in different capacities. Some have used it for sales, my current company uses it for Sales, Account Management AND recruiting (shameless self promotion), while others have used it for project management (in tandem with tools like Asana or Bootcamp or Jira). 3 - Speed of Innovation - Salesforce innovates at a good pace. Not too fast, not too slow. If a company was force feeding their clients the newest thing every time an innovation came out, many processes would break, and society as we know it would crumble (slight dramatization). Salesforce pushes updates at a good pace, and comes up with innovations that are pretty clean (Salesforce One Mobile app is a pretty good example). It is not bleeding edge, but do you really want to trust the success of your relationship with your customers on something that is so new that no one knows how established it will be?