November 18, 2013
By Maria Minsker, contributing writer

Salesforce.com Plans to Unveil Salesforce1 at Marc Benioff's Dreamforce 2013 Keynote

Now in its 11^th year, Salesforce.com's annual Dreamforce conference kicks off in San Francisco this afternoon. Salesforce.com Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff is expected to deliver a keynote address on Tuesday morning, and officially unveil Salesforce1, a new mobile platform that targets the development of custom apps for Google's Android and Apple iOS mobile operating systems.

Though few details surrounding Salesforce1 are available, Salesforce.com Executive Vice President for Products Kendall Collins told Bloomberg Media that the platform is a major overhaul of the SaaS CRM vendor's mobile efforts.

While Salesforce.com already offers Force.com as a development platform to customers and partners, Salesforce1's capabilities will reach even further, according to the company.

"Salesforce1 will fundamentally replace all of our mobile applications," Collins said. "It effectively is now our flagship mobile app."

According to Michael Peachey, senior director of solutions marketing, "Salesforce1 will offer ten times as many application programming interfaces (or APIs), along with additional user interfaces."

Salesforce1 will also provide users with a new mobile application that brings all of Salesforce.com's applications together—"this includes custom-built apps, and applications purchased through the AppExchange," Peachey says. Both Salesforce1 and an administrator's version of the mobile application, SalesforceA, are already available on iTunes, Benioff announced in a tweet this morning.

What to Expect at Dreamforce 2013

In addition to Benioff's keynote, Dreamforce 2013 will feature guest keynotes from Yahoo! President and CEO Marissa Mayer as well as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Holistic health expert Dr. Deepak Chopra—accompanied by Dr. David Agus, a pioneering biomedical researcher; Dr. Wayne Dyer, an international best-selling author; and Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann, a renowned oncologist and the chancellor of UC San Francisco—will host a special session on how to live a fulfilling life.
Salesforce.com will also host a $1 Million Hackathon at Dreamforce, during which hundreds of teams will compete to build a mobile app for the Salesforce Platform. The winning app will be announced at Dreamforce on Thursday, November 21.