The company also announced it had bagged Wall Street giant Merrill Lynch as a user, with the stockbroker signing on to deploy a 25,000-seat salesforce.com Wealth Management Edition CRM solution.

The financial services market is the biggest vertical market user of customer relationship management systems, and Salesforce.com has long focused on the industry.

The company is working with Cisco, Dell, Dow Jones and Thomson Financial as partners to define the next generation of financial adviser desktop.

Salesforce.com chairman and chief executive Mark Benioff said Merill Lynch was now the “showcase example” for on-demand applications

“Salesforce Wealth Management Edition changes the game for financial institutions,” Mr Benioff said, adding that “more than 1,200 financial services companies are already using Salesforce as the on-demand standard to manage their business.”

Salesforce Wealth Management Edition will be the next generation desktop for financial advisors, discount brokers, private bankers and independents, built on the award-winning Salesforce CRM application and the Apex on-demand platform.

Created with high user adoption in mind, Salesforce Wealth Management Edition will be an industry specific CRM application that gives advisors a 360 degree view of their clients and allows them to manage client data and information in one place.

Saleforce.com’s AppExchange partner eco-system means wealth management and financial services mash-ups with more than two dozen pre-integrated partner applications that are available today.