Salesforce.com Launch

Marc Benioff and his co-founders launched Salesforce.com, proving the viability of delivering enterprise software and managing customer data entirely over the internet as a subscription service.

Significance

While not directly cloud storage, Salesforce.com's success popularized the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, which inherently relies on remote data storage and access, paving the way for broader cloud adoption.