Salesforce.com previews Analytics and Dashboard Mash-Ups
Today Salesforce.com announced additional new customization features for their upcoming "Winter '07" version of salesforce.com. What's interesting about this is that it lets users mashup data and bring it all together on a customized dashboard. So far, mashups in the Web world have mostly been based on Maps (Google and Yahoo being the most popular), so it is very refreshing to see mashups on an Enterprise level starting to happen.
Salesforce's new mashups will deliver full componentization of its analytical dashboards - enabling users to create, share, and combine data components. Essentially this means that customers can pick and choose the best analytical components from a variety of vendors; combining them into a single view on their salesforce dashboard. Salesforce is hoping that lots of new components will be created and shared on their AppExchange.
Also, business intelligence vendor Business Objects announced that their product Crystal XcelsiusT will integrate with the new Salesforce dashboard framework. They are the first partner to participate in the new analytics mash-up category.
Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, is quoted as saying:
"This new level of freedom and flexibility is only possible through the power of mash-ups, open APIs and Web services on which salesforce.com is built. This new open strategy for mash-up analytics and dashboards continues the shift away from monolithic stacks and toward heterogeneous Web services. Customers of all sizes demand customization, choice, and freedom - and that is exactly what we are extending to Salesforce Winter '07."
Salesforce Winter '07 is scheduled for release in the fourth quarter.
See Also:
- How Salesforce has evolved (over 20 versions) to be a Web Office platform
- Interview with salesforce.com pt 1: AppExchange and the Web Office
- Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff berates Microsoft in internal email