“The Internet of Customers” was the theme of salesforce.com Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff’s exciting Dreamforce ’13 opening keynote. The conference had 142,000 registered attendees, and on the second day, Marc shared his vision for the third wave of computing, known as “The Internet of Things.”

According to Benioff, there has never been a more important time to listen, to interact, and to engage with customers. He added that it is vital for companies to recognize that behind the 50 billion connected devices in the marketplace, every app, every tweet, and everything else on the Internet, is a customer.

Benioff then introduced Salesforce1, a 100% mobile, cloud, and social, fully connected custom platform. Salesforce1 can be used by developers to build next generation apps, by Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to publish apps, and by admins to manage Salesforce from anywhere. Users can then experience all of this innovation on any device.

Watch the complete Internet of Customers Keynote below:

Highlights:

• Learn how Salesforce1 worked for three Salesforce customers, Philips, ADP, and Sony
• Philips EVP and CIO, Jeroen Tas, gave examples of how the Salesforce1 Platform has been used to connect and manage everything from toothbrushes, to light bulbs, to ultrasounds
• ADP EVP of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Ed Flynn, and Chief Product Officer and CIO, Mike Capone, shared how they’ve used the Salesforce1 Platform to build out a suite of custom applications to enable their 7,000 sales reps in the field
• Sony Computer Entertainment, Europe VP of Relationship Marketing, Darren Carter, gave a video testimonial on how the company is using Salesforce1 to connect with its massive community of gamers, and to enhance the customer experience with the recently-launched Playstation 4 game console.

The opening keynote session also featured the announcement of a new partnership between Salesforce and Hewlett Packard. HP CEO Meg Whitman, together with Benioff, detailed the new Superpod, which combines Salesforce’s multi-tenant software with dedicated HP hardware, designed for the largest customers to use.

Read much more about Salesforce1 and the ways you can use it to build custom applications to connect to your employees and customers by downloading our free ebook.