Salesforce today announced Wave, the Salesforce Analytics Cloud. Wave is the first cloud analytics platform designed for every business user, making it easier for users to explore data, uncover new insights and take action instantly from any device. Companies can now quickly deploy sales, service and marketing analytics, or build custom mobile analytics apps, using any data source. With the rollout of Wave, the company is entering the $38 billion analytics market with the launch of its sixth cloud in the Salesforce Customer Success Platform. The company is showcasing the solution at this week’s Dreamforce event.
By deploying Wave, analysts, IT and developers can work closely with business leaders to empower everyone to make smarter, data-driven decisions in seconds. Wave is natively integrated with the Salesforce1 Platform and shares the same trusted single sign-on, data security and compliance features of the platform. This enables users to quickly drag and drop data from Salesforce, including data from partner apps built on the platform, to deploy sales, service and marketing analytics apps.
“The data revolution is creating new opportunities for companies to create deeper, more meaningful connections with their customers," said Alex Dayon, president, products, Salesforce, in a statement. "The Wave Analytics Cloud eliminates the painfully slow, complex and unintuitive legacy approaches that have long separated business users from their data—finally, there are analytics for the rest of us."
In addition, developers and IT can use Wave APIs and other data connectors to easily connect to third-party data sources—from structured SAP and Oracle data to unstructured machine and social data. And because Wave is a platform, developers can also build custom analytics apps for any business function, or embed analytics into a new generation of apps and connected products for customers.
"The demand for self-service analytics is sweeping across every business function, as end-users demand relevant business insights delivered at the right time to increase their competitiveness and make decisions that positively impact revenues," said Dan Vesset, program vice president of business analytics research, IDC, in a statement. "This swings open the door for a cloud-based analytics solution, such as Wave, which enables companies to circumvent bottlenecks inherent in the traditional analytics model to give users a more mobile, collaborative and simple approach to exploring any volume and variety of data sources."
At Dreamforce 2014, more than 30 ecosystem partners will showcase how customers and partners can customize and deploy analytics for any business need with Wave Analytics Cloud:
- Integration Leaders: Data integration experts such as Dell Boomi, Informatica, Jitterbit and MuleSoft have joined the ecosystem to enable customers to seamlessly integrate any structured or unstructured data sets, ranging from on-premise SAP and Oracle data to machine and social data.
- System Integration Leaders: Deployment experts, including Accenture, Appirio and Deloitte Digital have also joined the ecosystem and offer exceptional industry expertise and best practices for advancing an analytics strategy.
- ISV Leaders: A diverse range of independent software vendors and predictive analytics vendors, such as Axeda, Dun & Bradstreet, FinancialForce and Predixion, have also joined the ecosystem to extend Wave Analytics Cloud for any business use case.
- The world's most data-driven companies, including Equinix, GE Capital and TriCore Reference Laboratories, trust the scale and speed of Wave to know their customers in a whole new way. Sales reps can combine regional demographic data and historical purchasing patterns to determine which products they should sell to which customers.
Customer service agents can resolve issues faster by understanding which stages of a product's life cycle are generating the most service inquiries. Marketers can refine promotional campaigns based on how customers are reacting to a pop culture trend or a new fashion accessory. And any company can now build custom analytics apps for its customers to analyze patterns, discover new trends and deliver actionable insights.
- Wave Analytics Cloud is expected to be generally available October 20, 2014 in English, with additional language support forthcoming.
- The Wave mobile app will initially be available on Apple iOS for iPhone and iPad, with additional device support forthcoming.
- The Wave Platform license includes all compute, data management, API and security infrastructure. Monthly subscription pricing for the Wave Platform is based on the number of Wave Explorer and Wave Builder licenses.
- The Wave Explorer license includes the ability to view, discover, personalize and share data insights and dashboards. Pricing starts at $125 per user per month.
- The Wave Builder license includes the ability to create, deploy and manage data sets, data connections and user access. Pricing starts at $250 per user per month.