Cloudforce London 2011

So Cloudforce London is over for another year and what a show it was. @benioff's keynote was really worth attending - it's here if you missed it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETRt7eDDpno. He covered a lot of ground but some of the most interesting parts were Salesforce's approach to touch and their integration of social with just about everything they do.

 

As Benioff said: "We were born cloud" and this investment early on is really paying off giving SF customers massive flexibility and ultimately competitive advantage. They showed how new apps can be developed and deployed within days not months and that his early vision of a world where core business systems can be available as a service is now a reality with plenty of testimonials from companies like Facebook, Dell and Burberry running SF in the back office.

 

Like many organisations, SF have invested heavily in HTML5 to deliver an almost native touch experience on mobile devices. They've also made sure that customisations made to their core objects also filter through to the touch UIs helping to make a consistent user experience. As a developer you've still got the option of coding native if you want it, or taking the hybrid route and wrapping your HTML5/CSS3 app using PhoneGap.

 

Integration with Radian6 looks pretty awesome too allowing a real-time view of your customer via social media monitoring. According to Benioff customers like Dell are using it to continually monitor their company's presence across multiple social media channels and help improve their service to customers. George Orwell would have been proud.