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SAN FRANCISCO—Salesforce never wastes any time connecting dots in order to produce new marketing opportunities. This is a main reason why it is: a) the largest business cloud services provider in the world; and b) why it unveiled its Salesforce IoT Cloud on Sept. 15 at DreamForce 2015 here at the Moscone Center.
When new trends start to get attention—such as current favorites big data analytics, DevOps and IoT—it behooves a smart company to look at them and see where it can add value to the emerging market with either a new product/service or a reconfigured one from old parts in the warehouse. Salesforce doesn’t miss a trick here, nor did others in residence at the huge DreamForce conference.
Salesforce IoT Cloud is a new service through which businesses not only can store data from the billions of IoT devices and applications as well as Websites and social networks, but also can analyze that data in real time and connect it back to Salesforce’s customer relationship management (CRM) software. The business insights that could be made available within that information are unprecented for most enterprises.
IoT Cloud is a natural extension of the Salesforce story, and it’s a potential gold mine for the company.
Several other companies at the conference also are demonstrating IoT-related products and service—mostly services.
LogMeIn is one of the companies leading the charge to help companies make connected products into connected businesses. A variety of connected products, powered by LogMeIn’s Xively IoT platform, are being demonstrated in the Salesforce Developer Zone in Level 2 of Moscone West.
LogMeIn has made a smart expansion from strictly humans logging in remotely to computers elsewhere in the world to devices logging in and talking to each other—another key sign that automation is taking over IT in a big way.
Here’s one use case: Little-known (outside of its own market) Symmons Industries, a leader in commercial and residential plumbing products, is showing at DreamForce its Inflow Shower product that monitors water temperature, flow rate and the duration of a shower. It uses LogMeIn’s Xively IoT platform to connect the shower sensors to the Salesforce backend to help facility managers at hotels maximize fixture usage, service and maintenance. As one might expect, a home version is also in the works.
Other real-world products that use the Xively IoT platform, also on display at DreamForce, include:
–Wireless lighting by industry pioneer Lutron, the company that invented the light dimmer two generations ago. Lutron light control products range from individual dimmers to total light management systems that control entire building complexes. Some of the larger Lutron light control systems in the United States include the 52-story New York Times Building in New York; Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; and the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.
–A connected enzyme storage freezer from New England Biolabs that is used by scientists to track, re-supply and make recommendations about necessary enzymes used for research in real time.
—SureFlap is showing an IoT connected pet door. You read that correctly. The door reads a chip on the pet and knows only to let the right cat or dog into the house—to the exclusion of foreigners, such as racoons, squirrels and enemy pets.
—SATO will be demonstrating its industrial thermal printer, which is connected to the Salesforce Service Cloud via Xively.
All of these are real-world IoT applications, available now online in services such as Amazon.com and others.
More of the above is in development, in all verticals, all around the globe.