Dreamforce Dispatch #2: Keynote

If you were expecting a low-key keynote, you can forget it.

A live band greeting us as we entered the main expo hall this morning for the keynote to kick off Dreamforce. Also spotted on a sign entering the expo hall, "This session uses strobe lights" - and it did.

First on the video screen were a couple of "commercials" in the style of the recent Mac vs. PC commercials. They were actually pretty funny. If I find them online - I'll add a link (anyone from Salesforce know if they will be up somewhere?). The video screen then showed a montage of salesforce.com employees, customers and partners while the band played on.

Finally, Benioff took the stage and after reviewing the safe harbor statement recognized folks attending from outside the US, non-profits in attendence and customer heroes.

More after the jump and links to additional coverage at the bottom.

Maynard Web, former COO of eBay and newly minted member of Salesforce's board of directors took the stage and gave a brief talk with included some eBay and Salesforce highlights (metrics about users, revenue, etc).

And, his quote of the presentation, the "AppExchange is extraordinarily cool".

Back to Benioff for the main keynote.

Benioff did his usual run down of Gmail, Yahoo Mail for Small Biz, Writely, Google Spreadsheets, Skype integration etc. If you've been to a salesforce event in the past 6 months, you've probably already seen it.

Appexchange: 400+ apps now on available on the AppExchange and 5 - 10 new apps are being added per week.

Quick points about multi-tenancy. And highlights Gartner quote about 25% of software delivered as SaaS by 2011. Benioff: "Anyone who says this isn't happening, hasn't met you... hasn't met me". Also mentions Salesforce.com is now one of the top 40 software companies in the world.

3.1 billion transactions in Q2 - 45% via the API.

Mentions that all attendees will receive a free copy of his book at tomorrow's keynote session at 9am.

Salesforce Foundation highlights:

1,000 nonprofits on Salesforce
40,000 employee hours donated
$8+ million in grants

Next up was a video interview from some news program with Thomas Friedman, author of "The World is Flat" where he mentions the Business Web (tm) and Salesforce.com.

Next part of the keynote is Winter '07 preview, the 21st generation of Salesforce.com.

George Hu, Chief Marketing Officer gives a tour of Winter '07. Some highlights:

• Business web desktop
  
• Calendar redesign
  
• Hovers for details and lists
  
• Pop-up alerts and reminders (APPLAUSE)
  
• Lotus Notes edition
  
• Embedded mash-ups
  
• Business logic and workflow
  - field validation
  - B2C data model
  - Approvals workflow (APPLAUSE)
  

Product Demo time

Demo of pop-up reminders and alerts. The sample is an alert that Microsoft Vista is 794 days overdue. That generates some hearty laughs from the audience.

Demo of hovers in calendar (golf jokes about sales reps)

Collapsible side-bar - (APPLAUSE)

Demo of hovers

Demo of embedded mashups

Demo of approval workflow

Demo of Salesforce for Google Adwords

Winter '07 Service and Support overview
New for call center
- Softphone integration
- Screen pops
- CTI with every major vendor (APPLAUSE)

Demo of service and support - showing integrated softphone as well as Assets.

URL used during demo:
http://adnsandbox.com/dreamforce/DF_SSP1/home.html

Next up is Laurent Philonenko from Cisco (VP & GM, Contact Center Business Unit) talking about their relationship with Salesforce.

PRM Overview

Talking about partners.

Benioff uses it to introduce Michael Dell live from TX via video. He briefly mentions Apex.

Next up is Dean Darwin, VP North American Channels for F5 Networks.

Shows their partner portal.

Next up, talking about dashhboards. Dashboards is now a platform.

Steve Lucas, VP Strategic Markets, Business Objects. He demos some custom dashboard objects.

Now for the big announcement that we all already know about.... (drum-roll please) APEX.

Write and run code on our servers (APPLAUSE)

Parker Harris, EVP Technology for Salesforce.com demos APEX using a sample warehouse manager application.

Salesforce Inucbators

San Mateo
Tokyo
Bangalore
London
Singapore

$20,000/cube/year

San Mateo opens in Q4.

Next up Bob Suh, Chief Technology Strategist for Accenture.

And, done. About 10 minutes over....

More keynote coverage:
gokubi.com: Dreamforce Keynote
Perspectives on Salesforce: Dreamforce Keynote
Moonwatcher: Salesforce.com Announces Apex
Where's the Upside: Show Opening and Maynard Webb Introduction
Salesforce Heretic: "You had me at Apex"... Well, almost.
SaaS Blogs: Salesforce.com's Apex: Benioff's Handcuffs for On Demand
ZDNet.com|Between the Lines: Salesforce.com's Apex: The morning tally
The 360: Benioff's Web Office Vision is Complete
ZDNet.com|Software as services: Salesforce.com outsources application development