Today is the first day of the 8th Dreamforce, the annual conference for Salesforce.com users. In advance of the keynote, Salesforce.com has already announced Database.com and Chatter Free. We’re listening for other new announcements during the keynote.
9:15 Benioff opens by noting that attendance for the event is at 14,500; will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas is here in the front row; by thanking customers.
Benioff: We’ve seen the the industry evolve from mainframes, to desktops to the cloud. Technology getting easier to use – but old players will old on to old technologies as long as they can. It’s Saleforce.com’s job to show a new way.
Salesforce.com Fortune’s fastest growing company in 2010.
Benioff: Salesforce.com was the first company to use the term “platform-as-a-service.”
History of collaboration: 1980s: workgroup computing. 2000s: intranet computing today: social computing
9:20 Attendees seem to be an even split between companies under 1,000 employees and over 1,000 employees. Benioff thinks this is important – the cloud is for everyone, not just large companies.
Benioff says Cloud computing is cheap – audience laughs. He says, “Well, most of the time it’s inexpensive.”
Benioff says Salesforce.com’s operation runs on 1,500 PCs.
The 1.35 CO2 emmissions (gram CO2 per transaction) for on-premise – .09 for Salesforce.com users and .2 for Google users.
Oracle’s “cloud in a box” is NOT the cloud, according to Benioff. “We need a cloud computing test” says Benioff.
9:30 Benioff: “Beware the false cloud” – it is not efficient, democratic, etc.
1% of equity time and product goes to the Salesforce.com Foundation. Employees get 40 hours a month six days per year paid time off to volunteer.
Round of applause for non-profits.
9:35 During Dreamforce last year social networking users surpassed e-mail users
Industry growth is now happening in smartphones, not desktops and notebooks.
The iPad hadn’t even been released last year at Dreamforce
will.i.am – “I can’t wait until the day I can create from the cloud. I’m not a Fortune 500 company. I make music on my laptop” but he says to collaborate he has to fly to different places. He wants to be able to collaborate on music in the cloud. He wants people to be able to hear his songs from the Internet as they are being made.
will.i.am also notes how social media like Twitter is changing how musical groups work.
9:40: Benioff: When he started Salesforce.com he asked why enterprise software isn’t made like Amazon.com. Now he asks why enterprise software isn’t made like Facebook.
Much has changed – touch interfaces, geolocation, feeds, push technology, mobility.
Benioff wanted to have a slide with President George W. Bush on the left with a caption that says “2000” in front of a bulk old monitor with Amazon.com on the screen and President Barack Obama on the right with a caption that says 2010 using Facebook on an iPad. Benioff says someone in the companys said that would be too offensive.
9:45 Brett Queener EVP, Product is up now.
10:05 Benioff’s back and showing off his multicolored striped socks.
Symantec CEO Enrique Salem on stage talking with Benioff now. He says that cloud computing may be the biggest change in IT in the past 50 years.
Salem: consumerization is an important force
Salem: enterprise mobility and ubiquitous access to information scares IT, but it is what will make people more productive.
Benioff notes the recognition Salesforce.com has garnered this year, including our Top 10 Enterprise Products of 2010
Benioff talking about Chatter Free now.
Existing Salesforce.com users can invite non-Salesforce.com users to Chatter.
Salesforce.com admins can also provision Chatter Free to all users in the enterprise if they want.
Chatter Mobile available for iPhone and BlackBerry now, for free – Android app still not available.
Coming February 2011 – Chatter.com
Chatter Free is free for colleagues of Salesforce customers. Chatter.com will be free for anyone.
10:20 John Miles a VP at Dell is talking about how Dell is using Chatter. Michael Dell has 100,000 colleagues following him on Chatter. Michael Dell uses the Seesmic app for Android.
10:40 Benioff is now talking to Sonya Sullivan from Motorola. Benioff seems to be a big fan of the Droid Pro.
10:45 They’re plugging the Dreamforce app available in the App Store.
10:50 Benioff talking about Force.com and Cloud 2 now. Says 50 new features coming to Force.com, being announced tomorrow. Promises “huge” announcements.
strong>10:55 Steve Fish – EVP of technology technology is talking about Database.com. Salesforce.com’s total database records doubled in one year, and transactions increased by 50%.
Disclosure: Salesforce.com paid for a plane ticket and hotel room for Klint Finley to attend the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco.
