Last week we saw one of the biggest technology events taking place in San Francisco. Namely the much anticipated event that was Dreamforce. Known for being one of the biggest annual cloud technology events, this year was no exception boasting a staggering 150,000 attendees and 10 million online viewers. This year’s event was as usual jammed packed with over 1,500 breakout sessions, guest speakers and salesforce.com influencers, such as Francis Pindar, live bands and much, much more. But the overarching message was clear; empowering woman, the importance of education and the Internet of Things (IoT).
To ‘kick off’ the event, seasoned Dreamforce pros’ would have eagerly awaited Marc Benioff’s tradition of revealing his Dreamforce shoes. Previously a good luck charm, Benioff’s shoes are now as much a part of the event, as the salesforce.com platform is itself. Whilst the shoes display a sense of humor, there was undoubtedly some serious rocking taking place, as the Foo Fighters once again pulled out all stops to ensure that the crowd was wholeheartedly entertained. Salesforce.com, clearly now have a winning formula to their event, by ensuring just enough light relief and entertainment, along with showing case the movers and shakers, and their products to the world at large.
The four key takeaways from the event, were:
- With more and more organisations joining the Salesforce.com ecosystem, businesses need to try harder to stand out from the crowd by creating productive tools that make a big difference
- By 2016, it is expected that Salesforce.com will be the 4th largest software company in the world
- The key focus for businesses will be around analytics and big data
- That Salesforce.com anticipated route for growth is Pardot
Microsoft and Salesforce.com also took the opportunity to announce that they will be strengthening their relationship. Their stronger collaboration will allow a better integration of Salesforce’s CRM platform with Microsoft’s productivity library of applications.
Plus with their new IOT service for Sales Cloud, SalesforceIQ for SME is a dynamic way of scheduling your time. It links back to real-time and has ‘smart send options’. This fantastic new application lets you know how to priortise your time by holding all the information you require in one, easily accessible place.
Benioff also took the chance to promote his charity work within the education sector, as he actively encouraged everyone to take part in donating books to schools and libraries around the world. Their objective being to reach one million book donations around the globe. If you wish to get involved you can donate online at https://foundation.secure.force.com/dfgives/
Finally for the early birds, now is your opportunity to start planning for Dreamforce 2016. Pre-register now for your chance of getting one of the limited number of passes, which are now available for $999.