Salesforce1, SuperPod Cloud Services Debut Amid DreamForce Show Glitz

by Chris Preimesberger

Because of the rapid ascent of cloud computing and the onslaught of more and more connected devices for consumers and for enterprises, Salesforce has become a pivotal player in new-gen business tools and services. DreamForce, held at Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, is the nerve center get-together of those customers, developers and corporate partners each year. It’s not a big commute for Salesforce staff, by the way; the company’s corporate office is literally a few blocks east on Market Street.

DreamForce 2013 went all out for attendance, offering free keynote and show floor passes to anybody who wanted them. Paid registration was way up, too. Paid-up folks not only get access to the conference, but also will be able to see Green Day and Blondie in concert at AT&T Park and Tony Bennett later in the week.

CEO, Chairman and co-founder Marc Benioff is always in his element at DreamForce, walking the floor and engaging with as many of the 12,000-plus attendees in the Moscone Center auditorium as he can.

Benioff demonstrated Salesforce customer Canon’s newest creation, the N-1 camera, which has a one-button connection to service professionals. If a user has a problem with anything, or wants to connect with the company for an added feature, or anything else, all he or she has to do is push the button Benioff is showing here. Salesforce supplies the CRM (customer resource management) connection.

Salesforce co-founder and CIO Parker Harris made a splashy entrance by driving in Benioff’s white Tesla sedan and coming out of it dressed as Professor Brown from “Back to the Future.”

Salesforce partner and customer Philips demonstrated its latest contribution to the Internet of things (and the Internet of customers) by showing a connected toothbrush that reminds users to brush and serves as a health care monitor at the same time.

CEO Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard joined Benioff on stage briefly to help introduce the new SuperPod, a co-op product of HP and Salesforce. Customers of Salesforce.com who want their own dedicated infrastructure within the vendor’s cloud will now be able to do it with this. The Salesforce Superpod will be based on HP’s Converged Infrastructure hardware and jointly developed and marketed by Salesforce.com and HP. They will be hosted in Salesforce.com’s data centers and cost customers extra money; pricing details weren’t provided.

The biggest news of the show is certainly about the Salesforce1 app development platform. The Salesforce1 CRM development platform isn’t so much a new product or service as is it a reassembly of existing products and services that also adds new functionality—mostly for mobile app development, eWEEK reported earlier this week.

This rather large blow-up canopy covers a large portion of Howard Street in between Moscone North and Moscone South. It covers most of an outdoor lounge area for conference attendees.

Huey Lewis and the News, a rock band big in the 1980s and 1990s, performed at 9 a.m. Nov. 19 to open the conference with “Back in Time” and “The Power of Love,” two of its biggest hits.