WebProNews

Tag: Slack

  • Salesforce Announces Einstein GPT, a ChatGPT-Powered Einstein AI

    Salesforce Announces Einstein GPT, a ChatGPT-Powered Einstein AI

    Salesforce has announced Einstein GPT a major upgrade to its Einstein AI that uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT to improve its abilities.

    On the heels of an announcement by Microsoft that it was releasing Dynamics 365, the world’s first ERP/CRM copilot, Salesforce has fired back with Einstein GPT. The company describes it as “the world’s first generative AI CRM technology, which delivers AI-created content across every sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT interaction, at hyperscale.”

    Salesforce says Einstein GPT will help transform the entire customer experience, thanks to generative AI.

    Einstein GPT will infuse Salesforce’s proprietary AI models with generative AI technology from an ecosystem of partners and real-time data from the Salesforce Data Cloud, which ingests, harmonizes, and unifies all of a company’s customer data. With Einstein GPT, customers can then connect that data to OpenAI’s advanced AI models out of the box, or choose their own external model and use natural-language prompts directly within their Salesforce CRM to generate content that continuously adapts to changing customer information and needs in real time.

    “The world is experiencing one of the most profound technological shifts with the rise of real-time technologies and generative AI. This comes at a pivotal moment as every company is focused on connecting with their customers in more intelligent, automated, and personalized ways,” said Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce. “Einstein GPT, in combination with our Data Cloud and integrated in all of our clouds as well as Tableau, MuleSoft, and Slack, is another way we are opening the door to the AI future for all our customers, and we’ll be integrating with OpenAI at launch.”

    Sales personnel will be able to use Einstein GPT to generate personalized emails to customers, while service personnel will be able to use the tech to generate articles based on case notes, as well as auto-generate personalized interaction with customers.

    Slack will also see Einstein GTP integration, giving users the ability to see in-depth insights.

    Marketing personnel will be able to use Einstein GPT to generate personalized content and engage with customers across mobile, email, web, and advertising.

    Even developers can get in on the action, using the technology to help generate code.

    “We’re excited to apply the power of OpenAI’s technology to CRM,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. “This will allow more people to benefit from this technology, and it allows us to learn more about real-world usage, which is critical to the responsible development and deployment of AI — a belief that Salesforce shares with us.”

    https://youtu.be/YAsKRxXdyj0
  • Slack’s GitHub Repositories Were Stolen

    Slack’s GitHub Repositories Were Stolen

    Slack has revealed that some of its private code repositories were stolen, although the company says no customer data was impacted.

    Slack is one of the most popular messaging platforms. Like many companies, it relies on GitHub repositories to help manage its code base. GitHub notified the company of suspicious activity on an external repository, leading to the discovery of the breach.

    The company outlined the details in a blog post:

    On 29 December 2022, we were notified of suspicious activity on our GitHub account. Upon investigation, we discovered that a limited number of Slack employee tokens were stolen and misused to gain access to our externally hosted GitHub repository. Our investigation also revealed that the threat actor downloaded private code repositories on 27 December. No downloaded repositories contained customer data, means to access customer data or Slack’s primary codebase.

    The company reassures users that the issue is not an inherent vulnerability within Slack, and that no other information was accessed:

    When notified of the incident, we immediately invalidated the stolen tokens and began investigating potential impact to our customers. Our current findings show that the threat actor did not access other areas of Slack’s environment, including the production environment, and they did not access other Slack resources or customer data. There was no impact to our code or services, and we have also rotated all relevant credentials as a precaution.

    Based on currently available information, the unauthorised access did not result from a vulnerability inherent to Slack. We will continue to investigate and monitor for further exposure.

    Hopefully Slack’s initial investigation is correct and no further breaches are discovered.

  • Microsoft Trying to Head Off Slack’s EU Complaint Over Teams

    Microsoft Trying to Head Off Slack’s EU Complaint Over Teams

    Microsoft is working to preemptively address an EU antitrust complaint by Slack regarding its Microsoft Teams dominance.

    Slack first filed an antitrust complaint with the EU in mid-2020, alleging that Teams’ rise to dominance in the industry is the result of Microsoft unfairly bundling it with Office, and using the popular productivity suite to boost Teams.

    “We’re confident that we win on the merits of our product, but we can’t ignore illegal behavior that deprives customers of access to the tools and solutions they want,” Jonathan Prince, Vice President of Communications and Policy at Slack, said at the time. “Slack threatens Microsoft’s hold on business email, the cornerstone of Office, which means Slack threatens Microsoft’s lock on enterprise software.”

    According to Reuters, Microsoft is looking to settle the complaint with the EU in an effort to prevent a full-blown antitrust investigation. It’s unclear if the move will be successful, but Microsoft is clearly continuing efforts to position itself as the more agreeable Big Tech company, willing to work with regulators rather than fight them.

  • Stewart Butterfield, Slack Founder and CEO, Leaving Salesforce

    Stewart Butterfield, Slack Founder and CEO, Leaving Salesforce

    Slack founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield has announced his departure from Salesforce, effective January 2023.

    Stewart Butterfield founded Slack, with its initial release in 2013. The company quickly went on to become a dominant force in corporate messaging, ultimately being acquired by Salesforce for $27.7 billion in mid-2021.

    Barely over a year later, Butterfield has announced he is leaving Salesforce, according to an internal Slack message seen by Business Insider. The executive made clear his departure has nothing to do with Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor leaving the company.

    “FWIW: This has nothing to do with Bret’s departure. Planning has been in the works for several months! Just weird timing,” Butterfield wrote. 

    Lidiane Jones has been tapped as Slack’s next CEO, a decision Butterfield had a hand in.

    “Stewart is an incredible leader who created an amazing, beloved company in Slack. He has helped lead the successful integration of Slack into Salesforce and today Slack is woven into the Salesforce Customer 360 platform,” a Salesforce spokesperson told Insider, saying Butterfield was “instrumental” in Jones’ selection.

  • No It’s Not You…Slack Is Experiencing Problems Today

    No It’s Not You…Slack Is Experiencing Problems Today

    Slack has been experiencing issues for much of the day, impacting workplace communication for countless workers.

    Users began noticing issues shortly before 10:00AM ET, and the issues appeared to impact a variety of the platform’s services and features. Slack has been working on the issue and has made progress, with services restored, according to the company’s status page:

    We’ve released a fix and all impacted features are up and running once again. If you’re still encountering any trouble, please reload Slack using Command + Shift + R (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + R (Windows/Linux). We appreciate your patience while we sorted this out.

  • Zoom Is Taking on Slack and Teams With Zoom Team Chat

    Zoom Is Taking on Slack and Teams With Zoom Team Chat

    Zoom is looking to take on the top dogs in the corporate messaging space with a rebranding of its own messaging platform.

    Zoom became a household name as a result of the pandemic, expanding far beyond its enterprise roots. As the pandemic has waned, the company has been looking to build on its success and use that to gain a bigger share of the business communication market. Part of that plan is positioning itself as a video communications platform rather than just a video app.

    The latest step in that direction is renaming its separate collaboration platform from Zoom Chat to Zoom Teams Chat. The name better reflects the company’s ambitions, as well as distinguishes the platform’s chat and collaboration features compared to the chat features available in the standard Zoom app.

    Read more: Zoom Debuts Zoom Contact Center

    “We used to call it Zoom Chat,” explains Janine Pelosi, Chief Marketing Officer. “As of today, we are officially renaming it Zoom Team Chat, to usher in the future of persistent messaging and further enhance teamwork and collaboration. We’ve already made significant investments in Zoom Team Chat’s capabilities, and we’ll unveil even more enhancements later this month.

    “Chat is the backbone of collaboration in today’s hybrid and flexible work environments. It’s where teams track projects, build culture, and instantly and asynchronously collaborate. It’s where teams begin and end their workdays. And it’s more ingrained in our day-to-day than ever.”

    See also: Zoom Exec Sees Growth Post-Pandemic Thanks to Hybrid Work

    It’s clear from the description of the service that Zoom is targeting Slack and Microsoft Teams, hoping to leverage the success it has had over the past two years.

    “Team Chat brings together messaging, file sharing, third-party integrations, video, voice, and whiteboard in one place to simplify how you collaborate,” Pelosi adds. “When you need to elevate a chat conversation to a phone or video call or share an idea via whiteboard, you can do so at the touch of a button right in Zoom Team Chat.

    “Additionally, Team Chat is a valuable external communication tool. It provides a seamless and secure communication experience for external contacts, including consultants, vendors, clients, and more. A notice in the chat or channel “compose” message box even identifies when an external user is present.”

    Only time will tell if Zoom is able to compete successfully against Slack and Microsoft, but the company certainly has momentum and branding on its side.

  • Microsoft Takes Aim at Salesforce With Viva Sales

    Microsoft Takes Aim at Salesforce With Viva Sales

    Microsoft has unveiled its latest attempt to take on Salesforce, launching Viva Sales, “a new seller experience application.”

    Microsoft has been working on challenging Salesforce’s dominance in the CRM market for years. The company’s latest effort is the Viva Sales tool, designed to with with any CRM and integrate its data with Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365.

    “The future of selling isn’t a new system. It’s bringing the information sellers need at the right time, the right context, into the tools they know, so their work experience can be streamlined,” said Judson Althoff, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at Microsoft. “Empowering sellers to spend more time with their customers has been our goal — and we’ve done that by reimagining the selling experience with Viva Sales.”

    Viva Sales allows sales reps to tag customers in Outlook, Teams, or Office apps, automatically capturing the data as a customer record. The software then uses AI to help move a customer through the sales process, prioritizing the next steps and providing valuable insights. The AI also helps sellers with recommendations to improve customer engagement and follow-through.

    “Sellers rely on digital collaboration and productivity tools to connect with customers and close deals, but a lot of the insights they uncover with these tools don’t make it into the CRM,” said Paul Greenberg, founder and managing principal, The 56 Group. “Microsoft is taking on this challenge by offering a solution that complements the CRM. Viva Sales automates the busy work, captures critical information about the customer and helps sellers get the job done.”

    Salesforce clearly sees Microsoft as a significant threat to its business, with many believing its acquisition of Slack was a way for the company to better fend off the Redmond giant.

    While Viva Sales works with any CRM, the app could represent a significant foothold effort. If companies find that Viva Sales lives up to expectations, it’s one more piece of Microsoft software integrated into their workflows. Eventually, they may find a full switch to the company’s CRM is the next logical choice.

  • Marc Benioff: ‘Office Mandates Are Never Going to Work’

    Marc Benioff: ‘Office Mandates Are Never Going to Work’

    Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has weighed in on return-to-office mandates, proclaiming they “are never going to work.”

    Companies large and small are struggling to adapt to the workplace changes brought by the pandemic. Some have embraced remote and hybrid work, while others are insisting employees return to the office (RTO). Benioff has made no secret of his belief that remote and hybrid workflows are here to stay, and he reiterated that at a company event Thursday, according to AOL.

    “Office mandates are never going to work,” Benioff said.

    See also: Hybrid Work Disparity Is Fueling the Great Resignation

    Although many companies are working hard to return to the pre-pandemic status quo, the evidence has so far supported Benioff’s assertion. The more companies have demanded employees return to the office the more those employees have pushed back.

    Even high-profile companies like Apple and Google have not been immune, with both companies receiving significant pushback from their employees. In fact, Apple even lost its top AI executive over its RTO policies. Google has similarly had to push back RTO deadlines in response to employee demands.

    In contrast, Salesforce has focused on its “Success from Anywhere” approach, giving employees “the flexibility to work how, when, and where works best for them.” The company’s acquisition of Slack has dovetailed perfectly with its efforts, helping round out its suite of tools and services to enable remote and hybrid workflows.

  • Salesforce Focused On ‘Driving Success From Anywhere’

    Salesforce Focused On ‘Driving Success From Anywhere’

    On the heels of a “phenomenal quarter,” Salesforce is doubling down on its hybrid work model and “driving success from anywhere.”

    Few companies have gone all in on remote and hybrid work as much as Salesforce. The company has been helping customers transition to the cloud, and has been rolling out tools aimed specifically at mobile workers. The company even purchased Slack, the poster-child of remote work, for a whopping $27.7 billion.

    According to Steve Brashear, Salesforce SVP, Global Real Estate, the company is continuing its “Success from Anywhere” approach, giving employees “the flexibility to work how, when, and where works best for them.”

    At the same time, despite being digital first, Brashear says the company is not digital only. In fact, the number one request from employees is to come in to the office for collaboration with teammates. In response, Salesforce has been reimagining its workspaces to make them more conducive to flexible work schedules and collaborative meetings.

    “Individual desks will still have a role, but we’re prioritizing more breakout and collaboration spaces,” writes Brashear. “We’re increasing our social space from 40% to 60% — adding more booths, cafes, communal tables, focus pods, and mobile audiovisual equipment to enhance the connection, camaraderie, and innovation that comes from gathering in person.

    “We are future-proofing our design with a flexible layout so we can adjust as we go.”

    Salesforce has been firing on all cylinders in its embrace of remote and flexible work, and could serve as a template for other companies looking to do the same.

  • Hybrid Work Disparity Is Fueling the Great Resignation

    Hybrid Work Disparity Is Fueling the Great Resignation

    Disparity between hybrid work requirements for managers and employees is leading to near-record dissatisfaction, further fueling the Great Resignation.

    Despite many companies thriving during the pandemic, most large companies have fought to bring employees back to the office as soon as possible. Many employees, while wanting the option to go into the office, have pushed back against efforts to make them return five days a week. This hasn’t stopped many companies from moving forward with their plans, and now employee dissatisfaction is hitting near-record highs.

    In Slack’s latest Future Forum Pulse survey, the company found that 34% of knowledge workers have returned to the office five days a week. This represents the highest percentage since the surveys began in mi-2020. Interestingly, along with this shift in the workplace, “work-related stress and anxiety is at its worst since our surveying began.”

    One of the main issues many employees have is the unfair disparity between executives and employees. Non-executive employees are almost “twice as likely as executives to be working from the office five days a week,” while their “work-life balance scores are now 40% worse than their bosses, plummeting at five times the rate of executives over the last quarter.” Those same employees are experiencing more than twice the work-related stress and anxiety as their bosses.

    Unsurprisingly, this dissatisfaction is likely to start costing businesses in the form of higher turnover. The survey showed that “knowledge workers with little to no ability to set their own work hours are 2.6x as likely to look for a new job in the coming year, compared to those with schedule flexibility.” This trend could especially impact working parents, people of color, and women, all of whom are more likely to want flexible schedules.

    Slack’s latest survey should be a warning to companies large and small, and force them to reevaluate their in-office policies. At the very least, it should cause companies to focus more on implementing their policies fairly.

  • Latest Version of Teams Brings Customer Lockbox and Improved Search

    Latest Version of Teams Brings Customer Lockbox and Improved Search

    Microsoft has released a new version of Teams, bringing Customer Lockbox and improved search.

    Microsoft Teams has quickly overtaken Slack to become the dominant corporate messaging platform, topping 270 monthly active users. The latest version brings a number of major improvements, especially to search, and security.

    One of the most notable additions to the app is the inclusion of Microsoft’s Customer Lockbox feature. Customer Lockbox addresses one of the biggest issues with cloud platforms, securing data that must be kept private, including from the cloud provider itself. Teams now includes the feature, giving users the ability to keep their most private information private.

    Search has been given a major overhaul, making results faster, more intuitive, and visually easier to interact with.

    A new search results page experience from Microsoft Search in Teams will make finding messages, people, answers, and files faster and more intuitive. A new All page will show top results from each domain, Bookmark, and Acronym.

    This new experience will provide better answers, decluttered search result snippets, preview message results for more context, more discoverable filters, and previews for files with better relevance based on the people and content you engage with most in Teams and other Microsoft 365 services.

    The new features are sure to improve the experience for Teams users

  • Slack Experiencing ‘Intermittent Issues’

    Slack Experiencing ‘Intermittent Issues’

    Slack has been experiencing “intermittent issues,” with users experiencing issues with calls, messages, and sending files.

    The issue began shortly before 6:00 AM, Wednesday morning. The company identified the issue around 10:00 AM, and began working on a fix. Slack is now reporting the fix has been applied, although some users may still have some issues as the fix rolls out.

    Thank you for sticking with us as we investigated! We have pushed a fix for this issue and while some affected features should be working as expected now, please note that other actions may take a bit longer to resolve as the fix takes effect. If you continue to have any problems, please reach out to feedback@slack.com.

    Slack’s issues come a day after Discord experienced a major outage as a result of a Google Cloud issue.

  • Outage Impacting Slack, AWS, Github, Walmart, and Others

    Outage Impacting Slack, AWS, Github, Walmart, and Others

    What appears to be a major outage is impacting a number of high-profile sites, including Slack, AWS, Github, Walmart, and others.

    According to Downdetector.com, some of the internet’s largest sites and platforms are experiencing a spike in outage reports. The reports started mid-morning on Tuesday.

    At this time, it’s unclear what has caused the outage, although AWS’ inclusion in the list makes it at least possible that it is the culprit, since the platform powers so many other sites.

    Slack updated its Status page to let users know it was aware of the issue, but still not sure of the cause.

    Some customers are unable to load Slack. We’re still actively investigating this issue, but we don’t have any new information to share at this time. We’ll keep you posted as soon as we have an update.

    We will update as more details become available.

  • Microsoft Teams Surpasses 270 Million Monthly Active Users

    Microsoft Teams Surpasses 270 Million Monthly Active Users

    Microsoft Teams has firmly cemented its place as the leader in corporate messaging, boasting a whopping 270 million monthly active users.

    Microsoft and Slack are the primary competitors in the corporate messaging market, although Teams has been growing at a much faster rate. The service had 44 million users in March 2020, 115 million daily users by October 2020, and 250 million monthly active users by July 2021.

    According to Frank X. Shaw, Lead Communications for Microsoft, Teams has now surpassed 270 million users.

    @MicrosoftTeams surpassed 270 million monthly active users.

    — Frank X. Shaw (fxshaw), January 25, 2022

    While the new milestone is certainly good news for Microsoft and its Teams platform, it’s also readily apparent that growth is slowing. Early growth was driven by the onset of the global pandemic but, as the market has matured and stabilized, the platform’s growth has leveled off.

  • AWS Experiences Third Outage This Month

    AWS Experiences Third Outage This Month

    AWS has experienced its third outage this month, impacting yet more sites and services.

    AWS has had a rough December, with outages that have impacted some of the largest online services. According to The Verge, this latest outage has hit Slack, Epic Games Store, Asana, and others.

    The company said it had fixed the issue as of 9:13 AM ET, but some customers may continue to see issues.

    A look at DownDetector shows many familiar companies — ones that were impacted by previous outages — experiencing issues again. While the issues appear to be tapering off, there’s still a ways to go before things return to normal.

  • GlobalData: Communication & Collaboration Market Worth $309 Billion by 2025

    GlobalData: Communication & Collaboration Market Worth $309 Billion by 2025

    The communication and collaboration (C&C) market will be worth $309 billion by 2025, driven largely by hybrid work and AI.

    The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled a massive change in the workplace as companies the world over sent their employees home to work remotely. Despite multiple attempts to return to the office, many companies have ended up postponing a return indefinitely as new COVID variants have risen.

    The shift to remote work has had a transformative impact on the C&C market, making platforms such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and others indispensable tools.

    According to GlobalData, that trend will continue, with communications platforms experiencing the highest growth rate, a CAGR of 15% between 2020 and 2025. Enterprise social networking and collaboration will grow at a CAGR of 14%.

    “Competition is raging in the communications platforms segment, which is already the fastest growing part of the C&C market, with many companies — from big tech companies such as Microsoft, Google and Cisco to cloud-native providers such as Zoom, RingCentral and Salesforce — all battling for dominance,” says Laura Petrone, Principal Analyst in Thematic Research at GlobalData.

    “The pandemic has made competition in the C&C market even fiercer,” Petrone continues. “Today, as we shift to a hybrid model of working, vendors are rushing to provide the appropriate collaboration tools to enable staff to work from their chosen location. Those companies operating in the C&C market who are building their artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) capabilities will be the most successful, as such technologies will be critical in the emerging hybrid workplace.

    “Augmented versions of collaboration tools, where people can display digital files and whiteboards inside the virtual space, are increasingly becoming commonplace. The likes of Meta and Microsoft are also championing the metaverse as the ideal environment to support hybrid working. However, the metaverse space will likely be exposed to potential data privacy violations, as it will involve processing a significant amount of personal data, including biometrics. Also, it remains to be seen whether office workers, many of whom are already struggling with Zoom fatigue, will find it appealing to interact with digital avatars in the corporate metaverse.”

  • Twitter Acquires Quill, Will Shutter the Service

    Twitter Acquires Quill, Will Shutter the Service

    Twitter has acquired messaging service Quill and is planning on shutting it down.

    Quill is a messaging service that competes with Slack and Microsoft Teams. Twitter has announced it has acquired the service.

    Quill says its service will be shutting down as part of the deal, but users have until December 11 to export their data.

    Quill will be shutting down, but its spirit and ideas will continue on. You’ll be able to export your team message history until 1pm PST, Saturday, December 11th 2021, when we will be turning off our servers and deleting all data. For all active teams, we’re issuing full refunds.

    Neither company disclosed the terms of the deal.

  • Slack Has Already Transformed Salesforce

    Slack Has Already Transformed Salesforce

    “Slack has already transformed the way we work at Salesforce,” says Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor. “Since we have deployed Slack internally, we sent 46% fewer e-mails. And in the last 30 days alone, our employees have sent nearly 60 million Slack messages and conducted 500,000 Slack Huddles. We run Salesforce on Slack.”

    Not only has Salesforce transformed the way they work with Slack but so are the customers of Salesforce. The company sees Slack as a core platform for powering digital transformation.

    “Customer 360 and Slack are powering this transformation for companies in every industry in every region of the world,” said Taylor in yesterday’s earnings call. “Slack outperformed our expectations in the first full quarter as a part of the Salesforce family. The number of customers on Slack who spent over $100,000 was up 44% year-over-year. The adoption of Slack Connect was up an astonishing 176% year-over-year. Slack is not just a product, Slack is a network, and it’s just incredible to see that growth.”

    The company seemed pleasantly surprised about how transformative Slack is to the operations of large enterprises. As Slack brought on millions of new users during the pandemic they focused on innovation that has made Slack much more than a simple communications platform.

    “Slack also continues to innovate at an unbelievable pace,” notes Taylor. “Slack Huddles, which is Slack’s new real-time audio capability, is already used weekly by over 1/3 of Slack users. And Slack Clips, the new asynchronous video capability, are being played nearly 1 million times a week. And this month at Slack Frontiers, which I hope all of you have watched; and if you haven’t, you can watch it online. Stewart and the team are now the next generation of Slack’s platform, and it’s going to truly transform the way companies think about workflows and automation.”

    Customer 360 and Slack are powering this transformation for companies in every industry in every region of the world, according to Taylor.

    Slack outperformed our expectations in the first full quarter as a part of the Salesforce family. The number of customers on Slack who spent over $100,000 was up 44% year-over-year. Adoption of Slack Connect was up an astonishing 176% year-over-year. Slack is not just a product, Slack is a network, and it’s just incredible to see that growth.

    Slack also continues to innovate at an unbelievable pace. Slack Huddles, which is Slack’s new real-time audio capability, is already used weekly by over 1/3 of Slack users. And Slack Clips, the new asynchronous video capability, are being played nearly 1 million times a week. And this month at Slack Frontiers, which I hope all of you have watched; and if you haven’t, you can watch it online. Stewart and the team are now the next generation of Slack’s platform, and it’s going to truly transform the way companies think about workflows and automation.

    “That is definitely what I saw firsthand,” said Co-CEO Mark Benioff. “I was like, how could it be that an airline is basically front-ending their entire system with Slack? That’s a shock to me.”

    “Slack is the system of engagement for every workflow, every application, every person on your enterprise,” added Taylor. “It’s really an amazing platform vision. And absolutely watch Slack Frontiers. If you haven’t seen it, I think it will blow your mind.”

    “Every CEO and every Board I talk to is focused on how they can succeed in this era of flexible work,” says Taylor. “According to Slack’s research, 93% of workers are looking for flexibility when they work, and 76% are looking for flexibility where they work. Companies need to connect their employees, their partners, their customers from anywhere because we all know we’re not going to be in the office 5 days a week.”

    “Our offices aren’t going away,” he said. “It’s just that your digital headquarters is going to be more important because it’s truly the infrastructure that connects all of it, and especially in this new normal. And Slack and Customer 360 together are really powering this transformation.”

    Slack Has Already Transformed Salesforce, Says Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor
  • Salesforce Unveils New Field Service Tools to Help Mobile Workers

    Salesforce Unveils New Field Service Tools to Help Mobile Workers

    Salesforce has unveiled new Field Service tools in an effort to empower mobile workers.

    Salesforce is establishing itself as a leader in the remote workforce market. The company recently acquired Slack and has made no secret of its goal to become the “digital HQ” for its customers.

    In line with that goal, Salesforce has introduced four new Field Service features, aimed at helping businesses empower their remote and mobile workers.

    The new features include Enhanced Scheduling and Optimization Engine, designed to help companies schedule and manage complex jobs, such as those requiring multiple steps. Lightning Web Components will allow Salesforce companies to customize their Salesforce Field Service app to meet their specific needs. Appointment Assistant Self-Service Scheduling empowers customers to create, manage, and cancel their own appointments. Visual Remote Assistant Two-Way Video allows agents and customers communicate via video chat.

    “With customers and employees looking for fast and easy service, the field service industry is ripe for change,” said Paul Whitelam, GM of Field Service Management at Salesforce. “Salesforce is continuing to evolve our field service management platform to meet the needs of customers and field service employees in this all-digital world, and these latest innovations bring more trust, speed, and convenience to every field service interaction.”

  • Cloud Giants Announce ‘Trusted Cloud Principles’

    Cloud Giants Announce ‘Trusted Cloud Principles’

    Microsoft, Amazon and Google have announced “Trusted Cloud Principles,” an industry initiative aimed at protecting customer rights in the cloud.

    With the rise of cloud computing, there are a number of issues that cloud companies and regulators are grappling with, not the least of which is privacy. Different jurisdictions have different privacy laws and requirements, making it a challenge for cloud companies to do business internationally.

    The three largest cloud providers — Amazon, Microsoft and Google — have created a set of Trusted Cloud Principles designed to help govern how cloud companies should operate. The initiative also has the support of Atlassian, Cisco, IBM, Salesforce and Slack.

    Through this initiative we seek to partner with governments around the world to resolve international conflicts of law that impede innovation, #security, and #privacy, and to establish and ensure basic protections for organizations that store and process data in the #cloud. Through this initiative, we commit to working with governments to ensure the free flow of data, to promote public safety, and to protect privacy and data security in the #cloud.

    The initiative’s website clearly outlines the group’s mission statement:

    Trusted Cloud Principles signatories are committed to protecting the rights of our customers. We have agreed to strong principles that ensure we compete while maintaining consistent human rights standards.

  • Disney and Facebook Execs Raise Funding for Live Video Startup 100ms

    Disney and Facebook Execs Raise Funding for Live Video Startup 100ms

    Execs from Disney and Facebook have raised $4.5 million for their live video infrastructure startup, 100ms.

    The global pandemic has brought videoconferencing front and center, as remote and hybrid work have transformed the workplace. For many companies, that has involved relying on Zoom, Teams, Slack or another platform.

    100ms is working to make it easy for a company to add live video to their own apps in a matter of hours, providing the infrastructure necessary.

    “Being a video engineer all my life, I understand the complexity of adding live video at scale. For a long time, this infrastructure has only been available to very few developers. We started 100ms to build live video infrastructure for the world. Our SDKs are supported on all platforms including ios/android/web and are equipped to build high quality video along with all the edge cases in just a few lines of code. Our infrastructure is designed to handle the scale and offers super low latency across the world,” commented Kshitij Gupta, co- founder and CEO, 100ms.

    Aniket Behera, co-founder and COO added: “Zoom is getting unbundled. Huge markets are being unlocked which are now leveraging white labelled video/audio – edtech, telehealth, gaming retail, fitness, audio rooms among others. 100ms aims to be the infrastructure layer for all these industries.”