The fiscal first quarter profit of the San Francisco-based Salesforce. com – the company that specializes in on-demand software, which is also called software-as-a-service, or SaaS – plunged 3.7 percent year-on-year, largely because of increased stock-compensation and debt costs.

Statistically speaking, for the quarter ending April 30, Salesforce reported $17.7-million, or 13 cents per share, profit, vis-à-vis the last year same quarter profit figures of $18.4 million, or 15 cents per share.

The company also put the blame of its fall in first-quarter profit on the rapidly-declining euro as well as recent acquisitions. In April, Salesforce worked out a $142-million deal for the acquisition of the sales-and-marketing data exchange – Jigsaw.

In addition to posting lower profits, the business software maker, which has recently been sued by Microsoft for patent infringement, also reported that its operating expenditure has increased; and issued a rather disheartening earnings outlook for the fiscal second quarter.

Excluding certain items but including acquisition costs of three cents per share, Salesforce expects its second per-share earnings to be 26-27 cents; which falls well short of the 31 cents per share average forecast by Wall Street analysts.

Meanwhile, responding to Microsoft’s patent infringement accusations, Salesforce’s chairman and CEO Marc Benioff said in his characteristic style: “Patent trolls are a part of doing business. This (the lawsuit) is not significant. It is not material to its day-to-day business.”