> "...they currently like Pipe...something"
probably pipedrive. it's pretty good for small sales (and some marketing) groups to manage their pipelines. easy to get up and running and fairly flexible for what it is. it's not going to replace salesforce though.
hubspot is a mid-market marketing automation product, sitting between little pipedrive and huge salesforce. it's also pretty decent for what it is, helping medium-size marketing (and some sales) departments coordinate across various channels. it also won't replace salesforce, but is appropriate for a mid-tier company (maybe ~$20-200MM in revenue).
salesforce is a huge sales channel management platform with at least a couple marketing automation products bolted onto it, along with all sorts of other semi-related stuff, like SCM (supply chain mgmt). this is because they want to own the totality of "marketing", which encompasses all of product, price, promotion, and distribution.
(i've done some consulting in this area and have helped clients pick and set up these things)