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The launch of the Apple Watch caused a flurry of conversations. Blog posts rolled, articles were written, and Twitter was abuzz with #AppleWatch. And with good reason! Wearable devices are on track to revolutionize the way we live. Soon, at the flick of a wrist, we’ll be notified of flight delays, view friends’ Instagram feeds, and even see when we get outbid on eBay. But how will the Apple Watch, along with other wearable devices, change the way we work?
Most of the apps in the Apple Watch store are B2C tools. This makes sense, as Apple is only beginning to tap into the enterprise market. However, the ability to conduct business on the go is becoming increasingly valuable to companies that are looking for productivity and efficiency advantages. Standing out of the crowd of consumer apps on the Apple Watch at the announcement was one enterprise B2B app, courtesy of Salesforce. On March 9, we announced Salesforce for Apple Watch, which includes analytics, mobile, and developer tools for wearables.
We’ve written about the business potential of wearables several times before. This emerging technology that shows a lot of promise for the way we conduct business. We’ve already seen amazing use cases where construction companies are using Google Glass to improve safety. Companies like Arch Virtual are creating architectural and medical VR simulations for Oculus Rift. Imagine using the Myo armband to control your Powerpoint presentation like a Jedi. Wearable intelligence is here.
Consider now that most of these wearables will be powered by apps, like any other mobile device. The Apple Watch in particular is a companion device to the iPhone: many of the watch apps are extensions of iPhone apps. Traditionally, creating business apps that take advantage of new technological opportunities has been difficult. Many app-building tools are inflexible, restricting developers to a single platform, or hindering speed by requiring them to code from scratch.
But Salesforce is unique in the marketplace. With the Salesforce1 Platform, developers have the flexibility to create customized on-the-go apps fast. The Salesforce1 Platform offers three ways to create apps that can bring your business to any device and any form factor.
The Salesforce1 Mobile App serves a dual function: it’s an app in itself, as well as an “app container” that provides mobile access to many apps in the Salesforce ecosystem. As soon as you download it, you have immediate access to all of Salesforce’s leading CRM apps. You can easily add popular partner apps like Evernote, DropBox, and DocuSign via the AppExchange. Plus any custom app you create on the Salesforce1 Platform is immediately available in the Salesforce1 Mobile app with a click of a button.
It doesn’t stop there. With Lightning App Builder, you can create powerful, engaging applications for any form factor with drag-and-drop components for everything from standard fields, reports and charts, to partner-built components from our AppExchange marketplace, to your own custom designs.
If you really want to get creative, Salesforce has also built open-source tools to let developers put their creativity to work. From the Salesforce Wear Developer Pack to our SOAP and REST-based APIs, you can put your own data to work immediately.
Using Heroku, developers can build apps in any language. This versatile architecture can help your company create an app that leverages the wearables SDK and APIs. You can also use Heroku to build apps using a local database and then tie into Salesforce with Heroku Connect. Whether it’s apps for employees to better do their jobs, or customer-facing apps to increase engagement, the platform integrates with existing systems to streamline workflow and foster innovation. So, when groundbreaking products like the Apple Watch come to market, it’s easy to take advantage of them with Salesforce1 Platform.
