You have to admit it, Dreamforce X (#DF12) was one of the marquee technology events of this year. As R Wang put in his recent recap on Forbes, Dreamforce felt like the South By Southwest for the enterprise. It was perhaps most attended technology event this year – an estimated 90,000 people got involved. Between their new Marketing Cloud, as reported by TechCrunch’s Leena Rao, and Work.com, Salesforce.com human resources solution for the social era (just to name of few), Salesforce put on a one-of-a-kind show that indeed, as R put it, represented the intersection of where aspiration meets innovation for the enterprise. It was a show only reminiscent of the good old days when shows were just that – inspirational, magnetic, and transformative. Global thought leaders ranging from Colin Powell, and Sir Richard Branson, to Tim Campos, CIO of Facebook, and Jeff Immelt of GE, were there to make sure we got inspired and revved up about the future of the connected enterprise.
Salesforce has had tremendous momentum behind it, and this momentum doesn’t look like it will come to an end any time soon. Perhaps redefining a whole industry does just that – it opens up opportunities for a whole new ecosystem that thrives along with you. Force.com is one of the leading development platforms and for a good reason. As we migrate from siloed systems and buy into the promise of the cloud, we can all see the silver lining in what a connected enterprise has to offer. This excitement and momentum was clearly in the air and shared by myriad of technology solution providers who came to talk shop, seal new deals, and party. You needed to look no further than the chat on Twitter to feel the buzz and lure of the vendors calling for you to stop by their booth, enjoy their freebies, and get a peek at what’s to come next.
The resounding message for me was that we are all coming together to accelerate the pace of business. And that pace is as fast and as powerful as it has ever been. From small shops to large enterprises, people coming to Dreamforce saw what the future holds. The future, it seems, will be connected – all these great applications will be glued together to get the enterprise the insights and instant feedbacks it needs to adjust to a world that would not put up with lengthy delays – gone are the days when businesses would put up with weeks or months on end to get their leads from the trade shows into their marketing automation systems. The call to arms was clear – we want our apps and data, and we want it now. We heard the big themes around organizational enablement through connected apps, and the need for real-time availability of data and information to help business leaders make swift calls and adjust their reactions to market demand in ways unthinkable just a few years ago. How far along we have come indeed.
Don’t just take my word for it – at the Partner Keynote, Ron Huddleston, SVP Global ISV and Channel Alliances for Salesforce.com, closed by saying to all the partners that having an actionable data integration strategy should be one of their top three priorities coming out of Dreamforce. We couldn’t agree more with Ron! Last, I had the chance to connect with forward-thinking market analysts such as the folks at Ovum – Carter Lusher and Jeremy Cox confirmed that the enterprise is getting more social and more connected by the minute. It is clear that no technology vendor today can ignore the force that Salesforce.com has become. Finding ways to connect and feed that force will be a sure way to be around not only today, but in the years to come. As a technology leader myself, this could not be a more exciting message – helping to support and expand the Salesforce.com ecosystem of connected apps is a contribution worth getting excited about. I call it a spark.
What are your takeaways from Dreamforce this year? How will you adapt your technology offering to serve the bigger Force.com good? Share with me on this post or connect with me on Twitter.
Lou Guercia
