There are many ways to describe the Internet of Things and derivatives – Machine-to-Machine, Internet of Everything, and of course the Internet of Customers. During Dreamforce ’14 we’re further differentiating the Internet of Customers, dedicating a track, and calling it the Internet of Connected Products (IoCP). The IoCP track promises to be both exciting and informative. 

For example, have you ever wondered how you can connect a medical freezer, a car, a fluid storage tank, or even a city to Salesforce? Are you wondering how you can prove to your boss that there’s real ROI in connecting products to Salesforce? Or maybe you’d just like to hear from the best and brightest visionary Salesforce employees and partners? You can even attend a session where you can hear from industry-leading analysts about how they think the Internet of Things will affect enterprises and consumers. 

See Emerging Technology Trends at Dreamforce blog for more info.

See the following video of IoCP in action:

Peter Coffee’s keynote on October 13^th 10:30 AM at Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Grand Ballroom B gets the ball rolling with amazing examples of how IoCP generates Big Data and how this data can be leveraged to provide business value. Continuing on the them of business value, ATEK needed to expand its customer service and create a foundation for growth to new offerings and a preventative service model so Etherios and ATEK are delivering a session on driving business value: “See How the Internet of Connected Products (IoCP) is Driving Value for Companies”. There are a couple of dedicated sessions on building your IoCP Business case/ROI “Learn How to Build Your Internet of Customers Business Case” and ROI & Business Value of IoCP on Customer Experience – these sessions are meant for companies, both large and small, who are being challenged by their management teams to “show me the money.” The team will also show you a cool IoCP demo in the ROI session.

If you want to hear from a panel of Salesforce Partner experts on whether or not IoCP is real or just hype, there is a session just for you — Internet of Customers: Hype or Reality Panel. Joining us on the panel will be experts and visionaries from Digi International, Thingworx, Axeda, Libelium and Deloitte. If you want to hear the analysts’ view, specifically from Esteban Kolsky, Kate Leggett from Forrester, Josep di Paolantonio from Constellation Research and Rebecca Wettemann from Nucleus Research then join this session The Current Business Value and Future Direction of IoCP should definitely be a lively discussion with extremely diverse views from the different analysts.

Industry visionary and thought leader Dion Hinchcliffe from Adjuvi will share his perspectives on how leading companies are building their own ecosystems of connected "products" to drive high performance, competitive advantages and establish unbeatable market share and network effects — IoCP: Ecosystems of Networks and Devices as the Next Competitive Advantage.

Many companies connecting their products have leveraged the powerful capabilities of Heroku — the ability to easily build native apps, to deploy and scale large databases and to easily connect to Salesforce objects likes cases and leads. If you want to attend more of a deep-dive session, attend the session on Building Internet of Connected Products (IoCP) Applications on Heroku.

If you are ready to connect to your home but aren’t ready to leave Dreamforce, then the Home of the Future session is for you. Salesforce has already connected everything from hot water heaters and thermostats to automatic door lock devices — The Home of the Future is here now. 

Cities of the future are here now and are leveraging Salesforce. The city of Philadelphia is building their city on IoCP and their session can be found here: We Built this City on IoCP: Connecting Citizen to the Cloud. There is also a session that will enlighten you on what the future of smart cities will bring: Libelium and the Vision of Smart Cities.

The Business Delivery Transformation in Healthcare Research session with New England Biolabs (NEB) will show how NEB has transformed its business of providing enzymes to researchers 24/7 through special connected fridges and automated replenishment management using Salesforce and Xively.

If transportation is what drives you, then you should attend Driving Business Transformation Together, A Real Case Study with Dependable Auto Shippers (DAS) and hosted by 2Lemetry with their partner Thinglogix. DAS was able to completely transform their business by creating a business model around Connected Car as a Service. If you think your company’s products will eventually evolve into “device as a service” or “product as a service” then this session is for you.

And finally, I will be hosting a presentation on the present and future hidden value behind connecting your products to the cloud. In IoCP Easter Eggs: Hidden Value Behind Connecting Your Products to Salesforce I will present my coolest Salesforce IoCP use cases and perhaps one or two that will gross you out or even scare you. I will also provide a glimpse into the future of the value behind ubiquitous and omniscient devices.