Dreamforce 2015 conference coverage
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Editor's note
At the Dreamforce 2015 conference, cloud-based CRM provider Salesforce built on its key innovations from last year, with improvements to its development platform, Lightning, and its analytics offering, Wave. With its upgrades, Salesforce has continued to focus on personalizing customer experiences, making data actionable and democratizing the application experience for business users.
Salesforce built on these upgrades with enhancements to existing offerings, such as the Sales and Service Clouds, as well as with new service offerings at the Dreamforce 2015 conference. Announced at the show was Salesforce's foray into the Internet of Things -- the IoT Cloud -- which enables companies to take the massive streams of data coming from products, ingest that data into the Salesforce platform and generate actions based on the data in real time. Wind turbines could adjust their behavior based on weather or delayed passengers with airline connections could be rebooked while they are still in flight. The IoT Cloud is powered by Thunder, a sister development platform to Lightning, under the hood.
The IoT Cloud also reflects Salesforce's further entrenchment in its ecosystem. Microsoft, for example, is using the cloud to capture data on Office 365 usage, Microsoft's productivity and collaboration platform. Salesforce in turn is tapping into Microsoft's Azure for scalability given the massive volumes of data, then sending the data to Salesforce applications.
Users responded to the offerings at the Dreamforce show with piqued interest -- and some caution. Users are generally enthused by the enhancements to Lightning, which they said has made Salesforce applications' UI far more user-friendly.
The Health Cloud, which Salesforce announced on the eve of Dreamforce, targets the healthcare industry and aims to bring siloed patient data together to improve patient relationships. However, the Health Cloud is ambitious in scope, promising to stitch together data from legacy healthcare systems. But this kind of data integration has been a bugbear even in industries in which CRM systems are well-entrenched, such as retail, so healthcare may pose an even steeper challenge.
Wave, the Salesforce Analytics Cloud, still needs to establish its street cred among a wider base of users. While some companies welcome its business-friendly data visualization features and speed of implementation, many others are still heavily invested in other analytics tools and need to figure out where Wave fits in to their plans.
Finally, the IoT Cloud presents opportunities to corral and digest massive volumes of product and customer data, but it's a major undertaking that will take infrastructure and other adjustments for many companies.
Ultimately, Salesforce's moves at Dreamforce 2015 signal that the cloud-based CRM provider is moving well beyond its roots, though CRM remains at the core. Time will tell whether this expansion bolsters its foundation or extends CRM too far afield.
For more Dreamforce conference news and trends, check out our roundup below.
1Dreamforce coverage
The Dreamforce 2015 conference was marked by Salesforce's commitment to tackling new industries with offerings including the IoT and Health Clouds but also by customer re-evaluation of older services. A year after their releases at Dreamforce 2014, Salesforce's Analytics Cloud, known as Wave, and its application-development platform, Lightning, still face adoption challenges among users. The conference also signaled the start of a deeper relationship between Salesforce and Microsoft, which could open doors for the IoT Cloud.
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Data quality yielding results from Wave
It can be challenging to get analytics applications such as Wave tuned and ready to return insight that can change business behavior. Read Now
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Salesforce upgrades Lightning platform
Lightning Experience and Lightning Design System aim to streamline processes for users and make life easier for developers to build components. Read Now
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Salesforce Community Cloud's Buy button boosts e-commerce options
Companies using Community Cloud can now embed Buy or Add to Cart buttons to a community page to facilitate sales. Read Now
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Why is Salesforce Analytics Cloud adoption lagging?
The Salesforce Analytics Cloud, or Wave, has encountered some company successes, but also more tepid response than expected. What's holding it back? Read Now
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Despite Wave upgrade, users still unsure
There are continuing questions of where Salesforce Wave fits into enterprises' broader plans for analytics applications. Read Now
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Learning curves, cost hinder Lightning, Wave adoption
A year after they were released, users are still questioning whether Salesforce Lightning and Wave are worth the investment -- both in money and time to get acclimated to the new platforms. Listen Now
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Checking in on Salesforce Lightning
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Salesforce ventures into health IT with Health Cloud
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Salesforce bakes Lightning capability into Service Cloud
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Does Salesforce IQ finally give SMBs a viable CRM alternative?
Salesforce introduced a more robust version of Group Edition, catering to SMBs that want to dabble in business intelligence as well as core CRM functionality. Listen Now
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Salesforce-Microsoft partnership could open doors for IoT Cloud
Integration of Salesforce Lightning with Microsoft's Office 365 signals a new era of interoperability for the two rivals as both aggressively move into the Internet of Things space. Read Now
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Success of IoT Cloud may turn on partner ecosystem
Salesforce is tapping key partners to pilot the new IoT Cloud and the results of the trials will mean a lot to the platform's success. Listen Now
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Benioff trumpets tech's greater social mission
With the help of celebrities such as Stevie Wonder and companies like Uber and Western Union, the Salesforce CEO emphasized giving back at Dreamforce. Read Now
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Salesforce adds Thunder to Lightning platform
Thunder, Salesforce's new real-time event processing engine, was released at Dreamforce and aims to help users personalize the way they sell. Read Now
2Reactions and discussions
From the Internet of Things (IoT) to data analytics and creating their own applications, Salesforce customers had a lot to talk about at the Dreamforce 2015 conference. Salesforce's new IoT Cloud was a hot topic at the show as users explored whether the platform, which aims to connect billions of data points from many different Web-connected devices, made sense for their businesses. One year after their release at last year's conference, Wave, or the Analytics Cloud, and the app-creation platform Lightning got upgrades in advance of this year's show and were met with some mixed reactions. Companies also shared their stories of how overcoming data challenges and moving to the cloud helped streamline their business processes.
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Salesforce unveils IoT Cloud
A Salesforce executive outlines what to expect in the IoT Cloud, including how it connects data from devices, how businesses can modify it and what the future could hold for the platform. Watch Now
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Salesforce pushes IoT despite lagging adoption
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Beware of IoT data governance challenges
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The IoT Cloud and building to a customer-centric strategy
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How Wave, Lightning affect Sales Cloud
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UI enhancements boost Wave's appeal
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Taking stock of Wave's present, future
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Are Lightning improvements enough for business users?
Despite involving a learning curve and needing development work, a Salesforce admin says the app-creation platform, Lightning, makes CRM more user-friendly. Watch Now
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Salesforce trying to cater to startups
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Central CRM platform leads to sales productivity
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Tailored customer experiences crucial for Quizzle
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Financial data in the cloud a no-brainer
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Personalizing customer journey key for airline
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