Salesforce Announces New Internet of Things Cloud, As Dreamforce Opens
When you think of Salesforce.com, you probably don't think about the burgeoning Internet of Things, but Salesforce wants to help customers make sense of all of the data coming from the growing number of connected devices …
Context & Ripple Effects
Salesforce is using its Dreamforce stage to push beyond sales and marketing software into device data, unveiling an Internet of Things Cloud meant to help customers make sense of signals from connected equipment. It lands weeks after e-commerce was folded into Community Cloud, part of a run of announcements widening what the Salesforce platform covers.
The announcement set up the build-out that followed: within months Salesforce chose AWS to run the service, and by late 2018 it was shipping that device data to technicians through Field Service Lightning.
First-order effects
- Salesforce customers with fleets of connected devices get a native path to pipe sensor and event data into their CRM records instead of leaving it in separate IoT dashboards.
- Salesforce stakes out a seat in enterprise IoT alongside the infrastructure clouds, competing on interpretation of device data rather than on managing the devices themselves.
Second-order effects
- Service teams become the first real beneficiary: Field Service Lightning routes automated IoT alerts straight to mobile technicians, turning device telemetry into dispatched work orders rather than passive alerts.
Third-order effects
- Enterprise software is consolidating around a structure where hyperscalers supply the compute layer and SaaS vendors own the workflow layer — device data flows upward through AWS-style infrastructure into applications like Salesforce's.
- If the pattern holds, customer service shifts from reactive ticketing toward machine-triggered intervention, making sensor connectivity a prerequisite feature of CRM rather than an add-on category.
The trend: Enterprise SaaS is absorbing IoT telemetry into core customer platforms, with hyperscalers like AWS supplying the underlying infrastructure.