SuperNova Award Polls Now Open

The 2015 SuperNova Award polls are now open! 

Cast your votes for the winners of the 2015 SuperNova Awards by viewing the individual application and clicking "Vote for this Entry" button. Polls close October 2, 2015. 

View applications and vote here: https://www.constellationr.com/events/supernova/2015

Why should you vote? 

At Constellation, we believe that the widespread adoption of disruptive technology cannot be accomplished without enthusiasm from the greater public about new and emerging technologies. Your vote, your enthusiasm, helps spread the promise of disruptive technology. 

“Constellation encourages members of the public to cast their votes for the 2015 SuperNova Awards. This is an important element of the competition because while we value the opinion of our SuperNova Award judges, we want to make sure the deciding power is not concentrated in the hands of a few. We strongly feel that the general public possesses a sensitive meter for the practical applications of technology. Projects that resonate with the public tend to speak to the wider applicability of a project 's technologies, logic, and implementation strategies to various other industries,” commented R “Ray” Wang, Chairman and Founder of Constellation Research, Inc.

One winner will be named in each of the seven categories. Winners will be announced live, on stage at the SuperNova Award Gala Dinner on November 5, 2015. The SuperNova Award Gala Dinner is held the first night of Constellation's Connected Enterprise.  

2015 SuperNova Award Finalists

Consumerization of IT & The New C-Suite

Russell Foltz-Smith, TrueCar
Daniel Hart, MEDHOST
Craig Pavia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade & Development Canada
Martin Brodbeck, SterlingBankcheck

Data to Decisions

Rasim Manavoglu, MUDO
Joshua Marshall, State of Indiana
Alda Mizaku, Mercy Health
Jamie Oswald, Mercy Health
Mike Peterson, Neustar, Inc.
Scott Salter, Cox Automotive
Sam Savage, Barclays

Digital Marketing Transformation

Naveen Gunti, Tumi Holdings, Inc.
Tushar Patel, Innotas 
Michael Seminara, Janome America 
Dan Sichel, Mind Share World
Tom Vu, Atmel Corporation
John Sahagian, Baxter Credit Union

Future of Work

Asha Aravindakshan, Ashoka
Geoff Corb, Johns Hopkins University
Cris Debord/Kenny Bailey/Brandon Garner, Dollar General
Steve Nava, Luminex
Hadi Partovi, Code.org
Helen Scott, Canadian Network for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health
Christian Trujillo, Western Union
Phillip Young, Dowco Consultants Ltd.
Donna Morris, Adobe

Matrix Commerce

Steve Carlson, FloraCraft 
Rodney Henson, MetLife 
Jordan Kivelstadt, Free Flow Wines
Erica Stevens, Dylan’s Candy Bar
David Tomlinson, ConAgra Foods
Ajit Sivadasan, Lenovo

Next Generation Customer Experience

John Bollen, MGM Resorts International
Dennis Bromley, Mountain America Credit Union
Mark Fordham, Central Desktop
Belinda Rushing, nTelos Wireless
Aparajita Gupta, Firstsource Solutions Ltd.
Brian Murray, CoTap 
Howard Tarnoff, Ceridian
Dan Wallis, Kaiser Permanente
Bill Zhang, SAP and the National Basketball Association (NBA)

Technology Optimization and Innovation

Erica Stevens, Dylan’s Candy Bar
Dr. David Bray, Federal Communications Comission
Jeffrey Cohen, The MENTOR Network 
Carter Maslan, Camio
Bob Moore, InterMetro Industries
Eric Quinn, C&S Companies
Julien Ramond, Club Auto Roadside Services Ltd., a CAA company 
Heather Maniscalco, Blackboard, Inc. 
RJ Smith, Venture Technologies
Keth Zecchini, Parsons Brinckerhoff
Paul Wright, Accuride

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Data to Decisions Future of Work Marketing Transformation Matrix Commerce New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Tech Optimization Innovation & Product-led Growth AR Executive Events AI ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI Robotics Analytics Automation Cloud SaaS PaaS IaaS Quantum Computing Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service developer Metaverse VR Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership Chief Customer Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief People Officer Chief Procurement Officer Chief Supply Chain Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Operating Officer

Event Invitation: Tweet Chat on Managing #ShadowIT

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...

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Managing The Shadow IT Explosion In The Cloud

Join me (@rwang0) Tuesday, September 22, 2015 from 10 to 11 am PT for a tweet chat that addresses head on the deep issues organizations face when the shadow IT takes on a life of its own.

To join, just follow the hashtag #CiscoChat and #ShadowIT and hop on in to the discussion!

Disclosure

Although we work closely with many mega software vendors, we want you to trust us. For the full disclosure policy,stay tuned for the full client list on the Constellation Research website.

 

* Not responsible for any factual errors or omissions.  However, happy to correct any errors upon email receipt.

 

Copyright © 2001 -2015 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC All rights reserved. Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on a a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience.

The post Event Invitation: Tweet Chat on Managing #ShadowIT appeared first on A Software Insider's Point of View.

Tech Optimization Data to Decisions Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite cisco systems SoftwareInsider ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI Robotics AI Analytics Automation B2B B2C CX EX Employee Experience HR HCM business Marketing Metaverse developer SaaS PaaS IaaS Supply Chain Quantum Computing Growth Cloud Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology eCommerce Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP Leadership finance Social Healthcare VR CCaaS UCaaS Customer Service Content Management Collaboration M&A Enterprise Service Chief Information Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief Marketing Officer Chief Revenue Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Experience Officer

Event Scorecard - Salesforce Dreamforce 2015 - App, Analytics, IoT

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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Salesforce Dreamforce concludes today, before it all started I collected my thoughts on what I wanted Salesforce to address before Dreamforce.

 

Here is what my thoughts were before Dreamforce (see for blog here and video here):

 

 

If you don''t have a chance to watch - some key thoughts in good old writing:

• Will the message change from 'Customer Success Platform'?

• Salesforce announced the Salesforce App Cloud, time to dig a little deeper.

• Let's see what is next for Lightning - and a follow up on Shield, all announced in the last 12 months.

• Along the same line let's see what is going on in "Analytics" with Wave - is more real time coming? Will it become 'true' analytics - read more here.  

• A chance to checkin the ecosystem - always good to check the pulse on the showfloor.

• Salesforce has been very successful but its core architecture is getting 15+ years old - is it now time to re-platform (my guess) and it is time to share that?

 

So how did Salesforce do? 

• The messaging stayed around 'Customer Success Platform' - a good move. I have been critical of Salesforce changing / pivoting the messaging too fast - yearly - so it's good to see it remained the same. Software needs time to catch up - so glad to see the same uber messages. 
• The Salesforce App Cloud turned out to be the major announcement of the conference. Customers and partners are excited about the new capabilities. Developers cheered when they saw the drop down deploy capabilties across AWS locations for their Heroku apps. And Trailhead is a well received, massive developer know how effort. Effectively App Cloud is the first cross cloud PaaS platform. 
• Lightning is becoming a confusing branding name for all kind of products - but they key is the new Lightning experience - finally a new UI for Salesforce. Starting mostly with Sales Cloud in the Winter release. The question is of course - why peacemeal this in a declarative UI architecture? Why not turn it all on? Kudos for the option of customers to operate both old and new UI at the same time. 
• Analytics Cloud has made good progress, mostly has become material beyond the announcement stage from last year. Salesforce is upgrading its reporting with better visualization, and with a price tag. But vendors should be allowed to charge for innovation. Concerns remain on the default daily update, which is a good starting point but cannot be the end state for enterprises in the faster and faster moving speed of business in the 21st century.
• The ecosystem is alive and well. We spike with a number of ISVs and they are both successful building on the Salesforce platforms their apps from scratch, as well as uptaking Salesforce innovations like Analytics Cloud and IoT Cloud.
• Aging Architecture - Salesforce has componentized (part of last year Salesforce1 efforts) and now a new UI with Lightning Experience. In a Q&A Salesforce founder Harris stressed that Salesforce is re-factoring all the time, but that cannot mislead that the core of the automation runs on a now 16+ year old conceptual architecture sitting on top of the Oracle database. Hardly where you want to be today, hardly 'cloud native'. And let's keep in mind, by now this architecture is older than the ERP architectures at the time Salesforce positioned those as obsolete 15 years back (e.g. R/3 was 10 years old in 2001, e-Business Suite 4 years old). On the flipside it is a very, very successful architecture that has powered Salesforce to become the #1 SaaS vendor. But age creeps up on humans and software...  an area customers need to pay attention to and from our conversations are increasingly. 

 

Is IoT Cloud the first 'false' cloud of Salesforce?

IoT Cloud was a major new capability for Saleforce. By itself it is an amazing engineering feat - listening and understanding IoT events, create profiles and trigger rules - all the way into the transactional apps. And it's the first public reference of Salesforce using open source - with Kafka, Storm and Spark. But in contrast to the other clouds it is not a 'true' (or the same cloud): The Sales Cloud lets me run Sales, the Service Cloud Service, Apps Cloud build and run Apps - the IoT Cloud does not allow enterprises to run IoT Apps. It's a connection cloud to the Salesforce Apps and platforms. So a 'lesser' cloud. When I asked Salesforce co-founder Harris and product chief Dayon, they pointed to product naming challenges - fair enough. But it is confusing for enterprises and Salesforce is positioning a little more here than what it is - and its a different type of Salesforce Cloud. 

That said IoT Cloud generates a lot of value for customers, allowing them to see IoT events, and action on them in their familiar applications,. Salesforce needs to be careful though not to see IoT too much from an apps vendor perspective - but also from a things perspective. The things perspective, moving code to the data, automating as much as possible in software (not through humans) are key design guidelines and use case for the next generation Apps scenario of IoT. 

 

MyPOV

Overall a good Dreamforce for Salesforce and its customers, much more happening than in 2014 where it was all about Salesforce 1 and Wave. Good progress creating more value for customers, but as mentioned above, some longer term concerns. 
From an event perspective, a massive party for partners and the ecosystem. But the event may soon get to big, with 20+ keynotes. Talks with customers showed they are overwhelmed and can't get to the information they need and want easily. And partners are concerned on getting their message across in a mega event like this. For years it was always 'bigger is better' for Salesforce regarding Dreamforce - but events have an optimal size, and Salesforce should not forget Dreamforce is a user conference that needs to create value for customers. I am sure they have a look for it and I am not sure if going to 200.000 attendees is the answer. 

 

Check out my overall event video here:
 

 

More about Salesforce:

• Event Report - Salesforce Dreamforce - Value for customers - but some concerns on direction - read here
• News Analysis - Microsoft and Salesforce Strengthen Strategic Partnership at Dreamforce 2015 - Good for joint customers - read here
• News Analysis - Salesforce Unveils Breakthrough Salesforce IoT Cloud, Powered by Salesforce Thunder - First dips into IoT - read here
• News Analysis - Salesforce Unveils the Next Wave of Salesforce Analytics Cloud—Delivering Actionable Insights Across the Customer Success Platform - Glass half full - and half empty! Read / watch here
• Event Preview - What I would like Salesforce to address this Dreamforce 2015 - read / watch here
• News Analysis - Salesforce Announces Salesforce App Cloud - A Unified Platform for Building Connected  Apps, Fast - It’s all coming together, across the clouds - read here
• News Analysis - alesforce Delivers Salesforce1 Lightning Components and App Builder […] - More productivity for Admins and Developers - read here
• News Analysis - News Analysis - Salesforce Launches Salesforce Shield - More PaaS capabilities coming to Salesforce1 Platform - read here
• News Analysis - Salesforce Transforms Big Data Into Customer Success with the Salesforce Analytics Cloud - Read here
• News Analysis - Market Move - Salesforce (re) enters HCM - will it rypple the market this time? - Read here
• Event Report - Salesforce Dreamforce - A Customer Succes Platform, Analytics and Lightning - but really Salesforce is re-platforming - read here
• Constellation Research Summary of Salesforce Dreamforce 2014 - read here
• Research Summary - An in depth look at Salesforce1 - Better packaging or new offerng? Read here.
• Dreamforce 2013 Platform Takeaways - All about the mobile platform - or more? Read here. 
• Platform ecosystems are hard - Salesforce grows it - FinancialForce shrinks it - read here.
• Our take on Salesforce.com Identity Connect - from three angles - Identity, CRM and PaaS - read here.
• Takeaways from the Salesforce and Workday Strategic Partnership - read here.
• Act II - The Cloud changes everything - Oracle and Salesforce.com - read here.
• How many Pivots make a Pirouette? Salesforce's last Pivot - read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard.

2012, 2013, 2014 & 2015 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

Tech Optimization Data to Decisions Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Dreamforce salesforce PaaS ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI AI Analytics Automation business Marketing SaaS IaaS Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP finance Healthcare Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

Dreamforce 2015: Value for customers - but some concerns on direction

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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We had the opportunity to attend Salesforce Dreamforce conference this week in San Francisco. It is a mega, mega conference with more than 20 keynotes, thousands of participants, press releases etc. but a sign that Salesforce and the ecosystem are very much alive and doing well.

 

So let's honor the new medium - here is my event report in video:

 

If you don't have the chance to watch / listen - here are my takeaways in bullets:

 

• Lightning Experience - The biggest impact on Salesforce customers is this new user interface - a big step forward from a usability capability. 
• Salesforce App Cloud - A key step forward for developers building next generation applications, bridging across Force.com and Heruko (on AWS) - the first cross cloud platform PaaS offering.
• IoT Cloud - A first (public) statement by Salesforce using a lot of opensource (Kafka, Storm, Spark etc.) to bring thing events to Salesforce users. 
• Analytics Cloud - Good progress with more visualizations and better embedding into Salesforce Apps. 
• Lightning App Builder - A key step to enable end users to build applications with little to no coding. 
• Trailhead - Another big push into know how distribution in the Salesforce eco system.

MyPOV

A good Dreamforce for Salesforce customers. More value with a much improved user experience, better reporting with Analytics Cloud. More productivity for developers building next generation applications on the Salesforce platforms. 

 

On the concern side, Salesforce IoT cloud is not a 'cloud' like its other clouds. Enterprises cannot run IoT applications on it - but interface IoT events to users in the Salesforce Applications. While it has profiling and  nice rules engine, Salesforce may miss out on the laws of data gravity, as it is effectively moving data to the code (and user) - not code to the data. The latter seems to be the more successful strategy for BigData / IoT endeavours these days. But a valid perspective from an applications vendor. 

 

Overall good progress by Salesforce, good to see the messaging being constant around customer success, a much needed break for Salesforce products to catch up. Stay tuned for more analysis.


 

More about Salesforce:

• News Analysis - Microsoft and Salesforce Strengthen Strategic Partnership at Dreamforce 2015 - Good for joint customers - read here
• News Analysis - Salesforce Unveils Breakthrough Salesforce IoT Cloud, Powered by Salesforce Thunder - First dips into IoT - read here
• News Analysis - Salesforce Unveils the Next Wave of Salesforce Analytics Cloud—Delivering Actionable Insights Across the Customer Success Platform - Glass half full - and half empty! Read / watch here
• Event Preview - What I would like Salesforce to address this Dreamforce 2015 - read / watch here
• News Analysis - Salesforce Announces Salesforce App Cloud - A Unified Platform for Building Connected  Apps, Fast - It’s all coming together, across the clouds - read here
• News Analysis - alesforce Delivers Salesforce1 Lightning Components and App Builder […] - More productivity for Admins and Developers - read here
• News Analysis - News Analysis - Salesforce Launches Salesforce Shield - More PaaS capabilities coming to Salesforce1 Platform - read here
• News Analysis - Salesforce Transforms Big Data Into Customer Success with the Salesforce Analytics Cloud - Read here
• News Analysis - Market Move - Salesforce (re) enters HCM - will it rypple the market this time? - Read here
• Event Report - Salesforce Dreamforce - A Customer Succes Platform, Analytics and Lightning - but really Salesforce is re-platforming - read here
• Constellation Research Summary of Salesforce Dreamforce 2014 - read here
• Research Summary - An in depth look at Salesforce1 - Better packaging or new offerng? Read here.
• Dreamforce 2013 Platform Takeaways - All about the mobile platform - or more? Read here. 
• Platform ecosystems are hard - Salesforce grows it - FinancialForce shrinks it - read here.
• Our take on Salesforce.com Identity Connect - from three angles - Identity, CRM and PaaS - read here.
• Takeaways from the Salesforce and Workday Strategic Partnership - read here.
• Act II - The Cloud changes everything - Oracle and Salesforce.com - read here.
• How many Pivots make a Pirouette? Salesforce's last Pivot - read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard.

2012, 2013, 2014 & 2015 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

Tech Optimization Data to Decisions Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Next-Generation Customer Experience Dreamforce salesforce PaaS ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI AI Analytics Automation business Marketing SaaS IaaS Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP finance Healthcare Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

Salesforce IoT Cloud Awaits Thunder Real-Time Engine

Doug Henschen

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Doug Henschen is former Vice President and Principal Analyst where he focused on data-driven decision making. Henschen’s Data-to-Decisions research examines how organizations employ data analysis to reimagine their business models and gain a deeper understanding of their customers. Henschen's research acknowledges the fact that innovative applications of data analysis requires a multi-disciplinary approach starting with information and orchestration technologies, continuing through business intelligence, data-visualization, and analytics, and moving into NoSQL and big-data analysis, third-party data enrichment, and decision-management technologies. Insight-driven business models are of interest to the entire C-suite, but most particularly chief executive officers, chief digital officers,…...

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Salesforce is promising low-latency data processing for real-time apps, but don’t expect hear the ‘Thunder’ until Dreamforce 2016.

Salesforce announced the IoT Cloud Powered by Salesforce Thunder this week at Dreamforce 2015, but it’s a streaming data capability not likely to become generally available until next year’s Dreamforce.  

Thunder is needed to capture data from sensors, mobile devices, wearables and other sources that often demand data processing within seconds or subseconds, as in (but not limited to) Internet-of-Things scenarios. Part low-latency data bus and part rules engine, Thunder is being developed with open source technologies including Kafka for data capture and messaging, Storm for streaming data distribution, Spark for in-memory data processing, and Cassandra as a high-scale database.  

What’s less clear is what Salesforce will contribute to this architecture and which cloud platform it will run on. [NOTE: Salesforce confirmed, post-publication, that Thunder will run on Heroku.] The Force platform and Heroku are both now lumped together as the Salesforce App Cloud, but Heroku still runs on Amazon Web Services. A third option might be Azure, as Microsoft was announced as a partner development customer.  

News Analysis: Inside Salesforce Thunder

The toughest challenge is likely to be how real-time IoT data-analysis can be synced with Salesforce apps and a Wave Analytics Cloud that currently supports hourly data updates at best (with daily updates being the norm)?  

MyPOV on Thunder

It’s fitting that Thunder is following Salesforce Lighting, last year’s big Dreamforce announcement, as Lighting was revealed nearly a year before it actually became available. According to this week’s press release, Thunder will enter pilot testing “in the first half of 2016 with general availability later in the year.” So it seems Salesforce’s marketing-oriented pre-announce/re-announce approach is getting to be a habit. 

The bottom line is that Thunder is a roadmap positioning statement rather than a real capability at this point. Many tough problems have yet to be solved, so in Constellation’s view it’s going to be ten months to a year before the vast majority of customers can start to realized IoT dreams and aspirations in the Salesforce IoT Cloud. 

Data to Decisions Dreamforce salesforce AI ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI Robotics Analytics Automation Cloud SaaS PaaS IaaS Quantum Computing Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP CCaaS UCaaS Collaboration Enterprise Service developer Metaverse VR Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership business Marketing finance Customer Service Content Management Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

Dreamforce 2015: Key Announcements Days 1-2

Greetings from Dreamforce! Constellation analysts have analyzed all the announcements made by Salesforce, and have compiled a rundown of the top announcements for their coverage areas. 

Continue checking the Constellation blog for ongoing coverage of the announcements made at Dreamforce 2015. 

Alan Lepofsky - Integration with Microsoft Products Reduces Friction, Boosts Productivity 

Yesterday at Dreamforce, Salesforce and Microsoft announced that in 2016 they will be delivering integration between the Salesforce Sales Cloud and various Microsoft productivity tools such as Skype, OneNote and Delve. This will provide joint customers a more seamless experience, reducing the need to jump back and forth between multiple tools.  

Salesforce also introduced SalesforceIQ, which ties Salesforce CRM records to a person’s email and calendar. With these items linked, Salesforce can provide more context around key events, such as showing the account records of the recipients of an email, or the outstanding tasks linked to the attendees of a meeting.  

Finally, Salesforce introduced a brand new web interface for Sales Cloud, which they call Lightning.  This new interface updates the current decade old UI, providing a modern and highly customizable experience. 

Read more about the Salesforce/Microsoft integrations

Connect with Alan Lepofsky: @alanlepo

Natalie Petouhoff - Hopeful Salesforce's IoT Cloud Delivers Customer Experience

Customer Experience IoT is developing very quickly, powered by companies like Salesforce who recently announced the IoT Cloud. 

The future of customer experience is Customer Experience IoT. The promise of this technology is as follows: as products become services, companies will receive a bevy of information about their customers. Soon IoT will enable companies to track their customers' sentiments about products, and use the data to deliver personalized experiences en masse.  

Keep in mind, in order to effectively implement these technologies and make use of the data being received, most businesses will need to undergo organizational change. Leadership will need to be comprised of leaders who understand digital business, and can pass that vision along to every employee. If your company is set in its ways, do not expect to take advantage of Customer Experience IoT. 

The bottom-line: customer experience is the new business currency and the path to business growth is via the IOT Customer Experience Cloud. (Note: privacy and protection of customer data will be the downfall of IOT customer experience clouds and software companies that are really dedicated to make it secure will have the competitive advantage to help their clients take advantage of the most important business transformation since the industrial age.)

Connect with Natalie Petouhoff: @drnatalie

Doug Henschen - Salesforce Makes Wave Analytics Wave Accessible, Affordable

Salesforce has revamped its Wave Analytics Cloud to embed insights directly into CRM, but the real winner for customers will be a bevy of new, pre-built sales, service and third-party analytic apps. The big Wave news here at Dreamforce 2015 is the pending (mid October) release of the Sales Wave Analytics App. The company is still hasn’t detailed pricing, but the word on the street is that this pre-built app will be around $85 per user, per month and will give sales executives and teams the most sought-after sales insights. Salesforce has also improved Wave integration within applications and the extended platform.

The real news with Wave Analytics Cloud, is the imminent availability of ready-made sales, service and third-party analytic apps that should lower the cost of Wave entry. Some customers will still want to use the general-purpose Wave Analytics analytics platform, which can be used to build any type of analytical application. But I expect the pre-built sales and service apps to bring the vast majority of Salesforce customers and users the insights they most need. The exact cost per-user, per app and the availability of bundling or multi-app discounts will make or break this second breaking of the Wave Analytics Cloud, so stay tuned for those announcements in October. 

News Analysis: Inside Salesforce Wave Analytics

Read more about Wave Analytics Cloud

Connect with Doug Henschen: @dhenschen

Holger Mueller - Build Apps Faster with App Cloud 

The key announcements at Dreamforce so far have touched key technologies for next generation Applications. Salesforce's new App Cloud will offer better integration between force.com applications and Heroku-based applications. As Heroku runs on AWS, this is the first cross-cloud PaaS announcement in the industry, something we will see more of. Cross-cloud PaaS makes it easier for enterprises to build next generation capabilities by enabling organizations to leverage the best of Salesforce platforms in one cohesive application.

The announcement of Salesforce Thunder as part of the IoT Cloud is significant because Thunder helps to connect IoT data volumes with Salesforce transactional applications. This enables enterprises to react to IoT signals directly in their Salesforce applications.

Read more analysis about Salesforce App Cloud, Analytics Cloud, IoT Cloud

Connect with Holger Mueller: @holgermu 

Steve Wilson - Salesforce's IoT Cloud Presents Opportunities to "Tame" Information Glut

Salesforce with their announcement of a new "IoT Cloud" powered by their Thunder analytics engine, are part of a new wave of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) providers to understand the power they bring to the Internet of Things. The need and the opportunity is not just about interconnection - it's about taming the information, and more. 

We typically think of IoT as the computerization and connection of everday objects. The result of this interconnection is usually either automation or control (using in-car console to activate air conditioning before arrival at the home), but the really disruptive benefits of IoT will be much less manual, with machines and algorithms cooperating automatically.  

Bandwidth and availability will be key. Frankly I'm bored with the predictions of 100s of billions of devices being online. Far more impressive is the data; a modern car for instance may generate a gigabyte of data every second.  How much of that will have to get out into the Internet to do anyone any good? How much will be pre-processed onboard, and how much will need to be crunched in the cloud?  The mix is going to be critical, for the IoT must be about all the decisions and actions passed along from system to system.  

That's the rationale for Salesforce's "IoT Cloud". As with any data processing, IoT data is nothing without analytics, rules, and feedback loops. Salesforce is bringing its Big Data capabilities to the Internet of Things, so that the flood of data from appliances, tools, machinery, buildings, vehicles and instrumented goods can be rendered sensibly and acted upon.  We can expect the Salesforce PaaS ecosystem, packaged anew as "IoT Cloud" to breed a host of new data supply chains, intelligent agents and intermediaries. 

"IoT Cloud" may look like marketing, but the information management aspects of the Internet of Things are only now taking shape commercially.  The stupendous volume and velocity of data in the IoT, and the complexity of responses to it all, makes the case for analytics-as-a-service more compelling than ever.  

Connect with Steve Wilson: @steve_lockstep 

 

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

Salesforce Empowers UCSF to Study Benefits of Personal Approach to Breast Cancer Screening

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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Precision Medicine Has Arrived: A research team at UC San Francisco has won a five-year award of $14.1 million from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to investigate whether a personalized approach to breast cancer screening is as safe and effective as annual mammograms. The project, called the WISDOM study, will be led by breast cancer researcher Laura Esserman, MD, MBA, professor of surgery and director of the Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. The Salesforce Foundation has similarly partnered with the Athena Breast Health Network to provide generous support of our important joint efforts.  Salesforce.com, an enterprise cloud computing company, is helping to revolutionize how organizations collaborate, communicate and share important information. 

“The controversy surrounding breast cancer screening has left women and their providers frustrated and confused,” said Esserman. “The time has come to put the controversy to rest.”

More on the Actual Breast Cancer Study: The five-year study – a UC Health systemwide effort with participation from all five UC medical centers – will involve approximately 100,000 women 40 to 80 years old. It will test a more targeted approach to breast cancer screening: those at higher risk are screened more often and those at lower risk are screened less often. Annual screening will be weighed against a personalized schedule of screening based on each woman’s individual risk.

“This pragmatic trial will allow us to learn who is at risk for what type of breast cancer, and to continue to refine our approach to screening, potentially leading to less screening for those at very low risk and more for those at greater risk,” Esserman said. “It will enable us to focus on prevention as well. If our study is successful, fewer women will suffer from the anxiety of false-positive mammograms and unnecessary biopsies, and more women will gain a realistic understanding of their personal risk of breast cancer, which may reduce general worry about breast cancer.”

How Will The Study Work? Women will be invited to be randomized (assigned by chance) to either the personalized or the annual screening arm. The two strategies will be compared to determine whether personalized screening is as safe as annual screening and whether it will reduce false-positive results and over-diagnosis.

Investigators also will determine whether women will readily accept personalized screening and whether knowledge of their own risks – and the reasons for their personalized screening regimen – will reduce, or at least not increase, anxiety about breast cancer. Additionally, the researchers will determine whether the personalized approach will lead to more of the highest-risk women deciding to use strategies that may prevent breast cancer.

Participants in the personalized screening arm will receive a risk assessment that will evaluate family and medical history, breast density, and tests for genes linked to the development of breast cancer.

Those with the highest personal risk of developing breast cancer or cancers that grow more quickly will receive recommendations to begin screening at an earlier age, receive mammograms more often, and continue screening until they are older. Those with the lowest personal risk will begin screening later, screen less frequently, and stop screening earlier. No woman will be screened less often than is recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force guidelines.

What Will The Outcomes Be? “We will learn from each woman who participates, and each woman will be equipped equally with more informed options to better personalize her medical care,” said Alan Ashworth, PhD, FRS, president of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and senior vice president for cancer services of UCSF Health. “This is a significant rethinking of breast cancer risk assessment and is a great example of how the UCSF cancer center is working to fully integrate cancer care with research for patient benefit.”

Participants in the breast cancer study will be drawn from the Athena Breast Health Network, a collaboration of the five University of California (UC) medical centers to drive innovation in breast cancer prevention, screening and treatment.

All eligible women from participating health plans who receive breast cancer screening at a UC medical center will be able to participate. The first health plan to participate is UC Care, a self-insured PPO plan for UC employees and retirees that offers care provided by UC’s medical centers. The first insurer to participate is Blue Shield of California, which has created a policy that will allow reimbursement for study-related services for members who are enrolled in the WISDOM trial while data are still being gathered about the safety and efficacy of personalized breast cancer screening. Discussions are underway with additional health plans and insurers.

“Blue Shield of California is pleased to support this important work to improve breast cancer screening and prevention,” said Marcus Thygeson, MD, MPH, chief health officer at Blue Shield of California. “The current ‘one size fits all’ screening approach doesn’t do enough to reduce breast cancer deaths while also causing women to undergo unnecessary testing and treatment that harms their quality of life. This study promises to help find a better approach to breast cancer prevent and treatment, which will benefit our entire community.”

UC’s systemwide Center for Health Quality and Innovation will partner with Athena on the project to help provide value-based care.

“This project is a paradigm shift for preventive screening, harnessing UC’s system-wide strengths to advance care for Californians,” said John Stobo, MD, executive vice president of UC Health. “We’re thrilled to be able to offer this screening trial to UC employees and the broader public.”

The breast cancer study is one of five projects selected for PCORI funding totaling $64.1 million. The award was approved pending completion of a business and programmatic review by PCORI staff and issuance of a formal award contract to UCSF.

“This project was selected for PCORI funding not only for its scientific merit and commitment to engaging patients and other health care stakeholders in a major study conducted in real-world settings, but also for its potential to answer an important question about breast cancer screening and fill a crucial evidence gap,” said PCORI Executive Director Joe Selby, MD, MPH. “We look forward to following the study’s progress and working with UCSF to share its results.”

PCORI is an independent non-profit research institution. Its mission is to fund research that will provide patients, their caregivers, and clinicians with the evidence-based information needed to make better-informed healthcare decisions. For more information about PCORI’s funding awards, visit the Research and Results page on www.pcori.org

UCSF is the nation’s leading university exclusively focused on health. Now celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding as a medical college, UCSF is dedicated to transforming health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with world-renowned programs in the biological sciences, a preeminent biomedical research enterprise and top-tier hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals.

Having lost my mom to cancer, this particular project is very near and dear to my heart.

@drnatalie, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

Salesforce Unveils Breakthrough Salesforce IoT Cloud, Powered by Salesforce Thunder

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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Connected World, Disconnected Data: The Answer? IOT Cloud

The combination of mobile, social, sensor, wearable and cloud technologies has triggered a deluge of data. More than 90 percent of the world’s data has been generated over the last two years. And, with the number of connected devices projected to reach 75 billion by 2020, the volume of data available is expected to grow exponentially. Without making sense of all this data, we just have a ton of nothingness and a lot of talk about possibility. But it’s time for possibility to turn into probability. And that’s what is in store for companies that are looking at the IOT Cloud.

This world of connected devices and digital content presents an enormous opportunity for companies to take advantage of the new data. In a June 2015 report, the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that IoT applications may have a potential economic impact of as much as $11.1 trillion per year by 2025. However, businesses have been unable to capitalize on the vast volume of data from the Internet of Things.

Salesforce IoT Cloud, Powered by Thunder—Connecting to the Internet of Customers IoT Cloud empowers businesses to connect data from the Internet of Things, as well as any digital content, with customer information, giving context to data and making it actionable—all in real-time. Thunder, built on a massively scalable, modern architecture, can “listen” to the connected world, ingesting billions of events a day, from any source. IoT Cloud’s capabilities include:

• Listen to the World at IoT Scale: IoT Cloud connects everything to Salesforce. In addition to the Internet of Things, connecting to phones, wearables, windmills and industrial turbines and other devices, IoT Cloud connects data from websites, social interactions and more to Salesforce. By connecting the billions of real-time events and digital content with Salesforce, the IoT Cloud brings customer context to transactional data.

• Trigger Actions with Real-time Rules: With IoT Cloud, business users can use intuitive, point- and-click tools to define, modify and set rules and logic for events that can trigger actions across Salesforce. A global fleet management company, for example, can enforce passenger safety standards by setting filters for “hard brakes” or “hard accelerations” and defining rules that trigger in-car sensors to log service cases reporting possible instances of erratic driving. Or, a national retailer holding a holiday sale can set rules based on loyalty program status, inventory or sales performance, triggering retail beacons to send discount offers to in-store shoppers in real-time.

• 1:1 Proactive Engagement through Salesforce: IoT Cloud seamlessly works across the Salesforce Customer Success Platform to surface insights and trigger real-time 1:1, personalized actions for sales, service, marketing or any other business process. For example, a thermostat provider can parse through billions of events gathered from weather forecasts, sensors and temperature settings to proactively alert customers on how to manage their HVAC usage within their predefined budget. Or, a vehicle assistance service partnering with an auto brand can send personalized offers on behalf of local dealers based on sensor data that tracks fluid levels and mileage.

IoT Cloud connects billions of events from devices, sensors, applications and more from the Internet of Things to Salesforce—enabling companies to unlock insights from the connected world. IoT Cloud is powered by Salesforce Thunder, a massively scalable, real-time event processing engine that enables Salesforce customers to personalize the way they sell, service, market… IoT leaders ARM, Etherios, Informatica, PTC ThingWorx and Xively LogMeln join Salesforce’s ecosystem to accelerate IoT Cloud customer success. Companies including Emerson and Pitney Bowes look to connect with their customers in powerful new ways with IoT Cloud.

Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive officer, Salesforce said, “Salesforce is turning the Internet of Things into the Internet of Customers. The IoT Cloud will allow businesses to create real-time 1:1, proactive actions for sales, service, marketing or any other business process, delivering a new kind of customer success.”

The IOT Cloud is the beginning of making sense of all the data turn information into actionable insights that really move the needle on a businesses growth, revenue, and bottomline. It’s time technology delivered on the promise of yesterday year and that time is now. To see how it can work, check out this video.

@DrNatalie, VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

Microsoft and Salesforce Strengthen Strategic Partnership at Dreamforce 2015

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

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Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer

News Analysis - Microsoft and Salesforce Strengthen Strategic Partnership at Dreamforce 2015 - Good for joint customers

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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The Salesforce Dreamforce event is happening in San Francisco, and a number of key news are coming out of the event, todays was a joint announcement of Microsoft and Salesforce.

 

 

So let’s dissect it in our custom style, the press release can be found here:

SAN FRANCISCO—DREAMFORCE 2015—Sept. 16, 2015—Today Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) announced plans to extend their strategic partnership to connect the Salesforce Customer Success Platform to Microsoft Office productivity apps and services. The two leaders plan to deliver new solutions that integrate Salesforce with Skype for Business, OneNote, Delve and Windows 10 to empower companies to connect with their customers and collaborate more effectively.

MyPOV – Well that sums it up pretty well. Both vendors are partnering to help customers and Microsoft is brining key productivity / collaboration assets to Salesforce users. Joint customer see immediate value from this partnership.

Microsoft and Salesforce continue to deliver on their strategic partnership with the general availability of two new integrations announced in October 2014: Salesforce App for Outlook, which works with Outlook 2013 and Office 365, and Salesforce1 Mobile App for Microsoft Office.

MyPOV – Always good to see continuity of a partnership, this first partnership deliverable has almost been forgotten, but good to be reminded. Even better if we knew what the uptake in the market has been.

New Integrations to Make Joint Customers More Productive Than Ever Before Microsoft and Salesforce have committed to working together to bring the following solutions to life:
· Skype for Business Integration with Salesforce Lightning Experience: Salesforce will integrate Skype for Business (formerly known as Lync) into its new Lightning Experience, a modern and re-imagined Salesforce that combines an intelligent new user experience with proven best practices that enable people to work faster and smarter. Office 365 customers will be able to use Skype for Business to create Web meetings, determine if colleagues are online or not, click to chat and make voice and video calls from the Salesforce Lightning Experience. A preview is anticipated in the second half of 2016.

MyPOV Good to see Microsoft being early in getting to the latest Salesforce experience with Lightning. Good for Office 365 users who now can do more from Salesforce. Avoiding context switches is always valuable for time pressured business users. Surprising that there is no mention of Salesforce Chatter, which would have been another intuitive entry point in my view.

· OneNote Integration with Salesforce Lightning Experience: Users will be able to associate notes with Salesforce records, and view and edit notes directly in OneNote from the Salesforce Lightning Experience. A preview is anticipated in the second half of 2016.

MyPOV – An interesting announcement, consistent to the strategy of Microsoft to move OneNote ‘everywhere’. The ETA for the solution is remarkably far out with 2nd half of 2016. It will also be interesting to see where the OneNote information will be stored – on the Salesforce cloud or the Microsoft / Azure / Office365 cloud – which has both performance and compliance implications.

· Salesforce Integration with Office Graph and Office Delve: Enabled by the Office Graph, an open ecosystem for sharing, collaboration and discovery, Office 365 users will be able to view BN and discover Salesforce content in Office Delve, such as sales opportunities, customer accounts and service cases. Availability is anticipated in the second half of 2016.

MyPOV – Good to see more recent Microsoft innovations like Graph and Delve being part of this partnership announcement. Enabling information from Salesforce to reach them is good step forward for a richer user experience and will result in better uptake for these newer products. And same as above – less content switching, logging in and logging out for business users.

· Salesforce1 Mobile App for Windows 10: Salesforce will deliver a Windows 10 app to empower sales teams to move deals forward while on the go, using their favorite Windows device. Availability is anticipated in the second half of 2016.

MyPOV – This was a holdout on the Salesforce portfolio. Good to see Salesforce1 coming to Windows 10. Interesting Salesforce is not building a Windows Universal App (or its not mentioned here) something that should work well for these needs.

Comments on the News:
· “Customer success is at the heart of everything we do at Salesforce, including our partnership with Microsoft,” said Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, Salesforce. “Our collaboration has been so successful, now we’re doubling down and delivering even more innovation that will help our mutual customers be more productive and connect with their customers in a whole new way."
· “Furthering our mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more, is the motivating force behind our partnership with Salesforce,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft Corp. “As a platform and productivity company, we are focused on bringing together the best of Microsoft Azure, Office and Windows with partners like Salesforce to empower our mutual customers to network, collaborate, communicate and discover information in more effective ways.”
· "As a global company with more than 400 brands, we are always looking for ways to strengthen collaboration across departments and take the complexity out of work,” said Paulo De Sa, VP Employee Services Technology, Unilever. “Together, Salesforce and Microsoft Office are helping us create an integrated digital workplace where our 170,000+ employees around the world can be more productive and connect with each other and with customers like never before.”

MyPOV – Powerful statements by all three gentlemen, Benioff with a focus on ‘the customer must win’ and more productivity Nadella on the ‘Office everywhere theme’ and De Sa on a joint customer being delighted.

Building on a Foundation of Success These new integrations will build on existing joint solutions that enable mutual customers to be more productive than ever before, including:
· Salesforce Files Connect integration with SharePoint and OneDrive for Business
· Salesforce Wave Connector for Excel
· Salesforce integration with Power Query for Excel
· Salesforce Mobile SDK for Windows
· Salesforce1 for Windows 8.1 Phone Preview
· Power BI for Office 365 integration with Salesforce

MyPOV – Always good to see what partnership products have been released already.

 

Overall MyPOV

Good move by both Salesforce and Microsoft to integrate their products better. When vendors do that, the business user is the winner, resulting in higher productivity and usage of their familiar applications. Another data point validating the ‘new’ Microsoft and the ‘OneNote’ everywhere strategy. Salesforce users get more productive and the vendor is showing it can partner with all major technology vendors.

On the concern side I am surprised by the almost (at least) twelve months out delivery dates – a very far horizon in these days of cloud based and delivered products. Maybe it is not so easy to connect between the Salesforce Cloud and Azure? Should not be the case – given the recent work Salesforce has done with Salesforce App Cloud – the first multi-cloud PaaS. This is more about what it is not yet – Salesforce maybe using Azure or even SQL Server / Azure DB to move off its current Oracle database for its transactional applications. But was has not happen, can still happen, there is a lot of synergies between the two vendors waiting to be exploited (Machine Learning, IoT, PaaS, BigData etc. just come to mind immediately).

But for now a good move by both tech giants creating value for mutual customers, that’s what customer (and influencers) want to see – value creation for businesses by increased productivity. More of that, please.

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More time - checkout what I want Salesforce to address this Dreamforce:
 

More about Microsoft:

 

• News Analyis - NetSuite announced Cloud Alliance with Microsoft - read here
• Event Report - Microsoft Build - Microsoft really wants to make developers' lives easier - read here
• First Hand with Microsoft Hololens - read here
• Event Report - Microsoft TechEd - Top 3 Enterprise takeaways - read here
• First Take - Microsoft discovers data ambience and delivers an organic approach to in memory database - read here
• Event Report - Microsoft Build - Azure grows and blossoms - enough for enterprises (yet)? Read here.
• Event Report - Microsoft Build Day 1 Keynote - Top Enterprise Takeaways - read here.
• Microsoft gets even more serious about devices - acquire Nokia - read here.
• Microsoft does not need one new CEO - but six - read here.
• Microsoft makes the cloud a platform play - Or: Azure and her 7 friends - read here.
• How the Cloud can make the unlikeliest bedfellows - read here.
• How hard is multi-channel CRM in 2013? - Read here.
• How hard is it to install Office 365? Or: The harsh reality of customer support - read here.

 

More about Salesforce:

• News Analysis - Salesforce Unveils Breakthrough Salesforce IoT Cloud, Powered by Salesforce Thunder - First dips into IoT - read here
• News Analysis - Salesforce Unveils the Next Wave of Salesforce Analytics Cloud—Delivering Actionable Insights Across the Customer Success Platform - Glass half full - and half empty! Read / watch here
• Event Preview - What I would like Salesforce to address this Dreamforce 2015 - read / watch here
• News Analysis - Salesforce Announces Salesforce App Cloud - A Unified Platform for Building Connected  Apps, Fast - It’s all coming together, across the clouds - read here
• News Analysis - alesforce Delivers Salesforce1 Lightning Components and App Builder […] - More productivity for Admins and Developers - read here
• News Analysis - News Analysis - Salesforce Launches Salesforce Shield - More PaaS capabilities coming to Salesforce1 Platform - read here
• News Analysis - Salesforce Transforms Big Data Into Customer Success with the Salesforce Analytics Cloud - Read here
• News Analysis - Market Move - Salesforce (re) enters HCM - will it rypple the market this time? - Read here
• Event Report - Salesforce Dreamforce - A Customer Succes Platform, Analytics and Lightning - but really Salesforce is re-platforming - read here
• Constellation Research Summary of Salesforce Dreamforce 2014 - read here
• Research Summary - An in depth look at Salesforce1 - Better packaging or new offerng? Read here.
• Dreamforce 2013 Platform Takeaways - All about the mobile platform - or more? Read here. 
• Platform ecosystems are hard - Salesforce grows it - FinancialForce shrinks it - read here.
• Our take on Salesforce.com Identity Connect - from three angles - Identity, CRM and PaaS - read here.
• Takeaways from the Salesforce and Workday Strategic Partnership - read here.
• Act II - The Cloud changes everything - Oracle and Salesforce.com - read here.
• How many Pivots make a Pirouette? Salesforce's last Pivot - read here.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard.

2012, 2013, 2014 & 2015 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

Next-Generation Customer Experience Data to Decisions Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth New C-Suite Tech Optimization salesforce Microsoft Chief Information Officer Chief Experience Officer