New Delhi, Dec. 16 -- Tata Consultancy Services Ltd's takeover of Coastal Cloud in its largest acquisition since going public wasn't a one-off-it is the seventeenth such buyout of a Salesforce-centric firm by an Indian software services provider in the past decade. Yet, the focus on creating products for Salesforce systems has become increasingly vital as artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes businesses.

San Francisco-based Salesforce Inc develops software to manage client inventory tracking, sales, ticket resolutions, and data entry. It even tracks marketing campaigns and keeps a log of customer engagements. Homegrown IT services companies customise this software and integrate it into their clients' back-end IT systems.

Over the past d...