The first Dreamforce, the Salesforce user conference occurred in 2003, showcasing 50 exhibitors and drew 1,130 attendees. My first thought in seeing that was…really? Dreamforce has only been around for 8 years? It feels like much longer...in a good way.

This year, Dreamforce will have 270+ exhibitors and I'm guessing will exceed last year's 23,000 attendees. I did the math for you. Last year's attendees exceeded the first year's by 19x. And what’s important about that is it reflects how much bigger Salesforce has grown over the same period.

In 2003, Salesforce had 6,400 customers. Today, the company has almost 98,000 or about 14x more than in 2003.

Eloqua and Jess3 teamed together to create a nifty infographic about the rise of Dreamforce.