Part 3 of this series is now available: Dreamforce IoT Equipment
The Best IoT Education is at Dreamforce – I already posted about our 48 hands-on IoT workshops! – and I’m thrilled today to introduce you to the 27 partners who are part of the DevZone Internet of Things area. This is an outstanding crew, and every attendee can learn something from each and every one of them. Fair warning: This is a long post. But it’s completely worth it, and the very last partner I talk about might just turn out to be your personal favorite at the show. If you have questions about any of these, just ask @ReidCarlberg or @Metadaddy.
I’m going to start with Intel and ARM. Both companies are showing tremendous technical leadership. Intel has recently released the first version of the Edison board, a great way for anyone to get started making wearables and other connected devices. ARM has just announced their end-to-end operating system for connected devices, mbed OS. I’m thrilled that they’ll both be at Dreamforce showing off their technology, leading hands-on workshops and helping us all learn what it takes to succeed in this emerging era of hyper-connectivity.
Salesforce is very fortunate to have a robust partner ecosystem, and four great consulting partners are joining us. Xively has helped create some of the most interesting integrations in the industry, including the New England BioLabs connected freezer. 2lemetry is led by an outstanding technical crew, including well-known developer and hackathon winner Kyle Roche, and recently released an AppExchange app 2lemetry Integrate that makes developing connected apps easier. Etherios was the first partner to release an IoT app on the AppExchange, the Social Machine, and has deep expertise helping customers succeed–and a great way for developers to get up and running in 10 minutes! ThingWorx is a tremendous partner with an IoT app platform designed to help companies build Salesforce connected apps very quickly.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Salesforce is driving the enterprise wearables conversation forward with the help of great Salesforce Wear partners. BioNym, makers of Nymi, the cardiac rhythm based identity smart band, will be here and will help you understand exactly how the device works. Thalmic Labs, makers of the Myo will be here as well with a brand new app that will really show you the potential of a hands-free user interface. Epson will also be demonstrating their Moverio BT-200, their excellent enterprise focused Android based VR headset.
Now, wearables is an exploding area — I’ve been tracking it in this WearDB app and am shocked at how fast it’s growing! — and so we’re also being joined by some new kids on the block. The Muse Headband is a great tool for helping you settle your throughts, and we’ll have a super fun demo where you can try it on Tuesday. Emotiv is also a thought reader — it reads brainwaves from 14 connectors! – and they’ll be here on Monday. Lambda Labs is an extremely interesting take on life-logging, and you can try on their prototype hats in the zone on Tuesday. And GigaBryte will join us on Wednesday to demonstrate their unique approach to educating the next generation of makers.
I said before that the Salesforce partner ecosystem goes pretty deep, and I’m very excited to include two great IoT themed ISV’s. Proximity Insight, lead by Salesforce guru and MVP Matt Lacey and ISV community icon Kris Moyse, will be in the zone talking about how iBeacons can take retail operations to the next level. Brivo Labs, experts on commercial security and access management, will also be in the area showing off their building access management system Randivoo on Thursday and Friday.
No Internet of Things conference worth it’s weight in salt would be complete without some exciting hardware vendors, and we’ve got four. Let’s start with Electric Imp. Electric Imp has been helping companies connect their devices to the Internet at scale for years. Spark is probably this year’s most exciting entrant to the DIY board space with their $39 dev kit that exposes Arduino like functionality as a REST API. Tessel offers a revolutionary approach to development that focuses on JavaScript rather than C. And Seed Labs is a super-exciting new entrant on the field who aims to help large scale manufacturers connect their goods via BlueTooth Low Energy.
As if these great partners and features weren’t enough, we also have Ninja Blocks joining us. They’ll be showing off their Ninja Sphere in public for the first time. The Ninja Sphere is a control center for your connected home or office. You can activate it with a swipe of your hand, and it can easily control a wide variety of devices.
We also have two companies operating their connected businesses at scale joining us. IVM creates intelligent vending machines, and you’ll see their equipment all over the zone. Hexagon Metrology is the world leader in industrial measurement technology, and you’ll be able to see how they’re integrating their systems with The Salesforce1 Platform today.
Finally, several visionaries are joining us. Carvoyant will help you understand why and how to connect your cars to the Internet. Micrium will show you how to create extremely robust connected architectures that even the most complicated enterprise can rely on. Resin.io has a unique way of managing connected device configuration at scale.
Last but not least, I’d like you to meet the local 3D printing experts from the Chimera Arts Makerspace in Sonoma. This crew will be bringing the industry-leading open-source Lulzbot Taz4 printer along with some of their more interesting creations. Look for them!
OK, this has been a pretty long post, but I’m glad I wrote it, and even more glad that you took the time to read it. Dreamforce is just around the corner and I look forward to seeing you there!