Today in Monash's post on Database Saas they mention the analytics part of salesforce.com as one end of the continuum of "data market outsourcing".

Just in case you'd forgotten, salesforce.com is more than the database - there are Database Services but also services to manage that, query it, and build forms - the whole platform, as well as a set of partners providing analytics solutions on AppExchange.

But in the Monash blog post, they do go on to list other providers who may be a better fit if you don't need (or want) the rest of the salesforce.com platform, and want SQL or ODBC access to your data (rather than SOQL).