TechWeek: Ultimate Software Fighting

Salesforce.com(CRM Quote) isn't exactly the Kleenex of the software world, but it's pretty close to being synonymous with "on demand." And even those in the know look at on-demand, a business model that features subscriptions instead of licenses and software that runs on the vendors' -- not the customers' -- hardware, as being closely related to customer-relationship management.

But Ultimate Software(ULTI Quote), a smallish-cap company that is approaching the $100 million annual sales barrier, is showing that the model may have legs.

Ultimate, which makes a living providing the kind of outsourced payroll services usually associated with companies like ADP(ADP Quote), reported fourth-quarter financials this week, and the results were a lot better than Wall Street had anticipated. ...