Salesforce Back to the Future

So here we are again, another Wizard News post… but on a Wednesday? Great Scott!

Well in honor of Back to the Future Day, I’ve time traveled us one day. So today, Wednesday, has magically become Thursday.

Badge of the future available only on 10/21/2015

STOP! Before you do anything, go out to Trailhead and earn a badge. Doesn’t matter which one. If you earn a badge today, 10/21/2015 you’ll get an extra badge. Two badges for one! It’ll be the Badge of the future!

Got your badge? Good! Now let’s take a trip down memory lane.

First, it’s important to know where you were in 1999 when Salesforce got started. After all, you don’t want to risk having to meet yourself. Marc Benioff and Parker Harris start salesforce.com in March of 1999 with their 1-1-1 model donating 1% of their profit, equity, and employee time). This led to the Salesforce Foundation being started in 2001.

Back in those days there were no such things as Custom Objects. Visualforce didn’t exist. It would be quite some time until you create your own custom objects, use s-Controls (the pre-cursor of Visualforce, never forget!), and writing your own APEX code.

Building a report required seven different “next” buttons to step through the process. Forgot to add a field? No problem, just go back to the different steps and woe to you who wasn’t sure what they wanted their report to look like. There was no report preview.

Speaking of looks, things were a tad… different. This was what Salesforce looked like to me when I first started. Lots of yellow and orange all over the place. Gray buttons. It wouldn’t until the Summer 2010 release when the “Enable New User Interface Theme” User Interface checkbox would appear changing the color scheme we’ve loved for so long.

2003 brought the first Dreamforce, with a whopping 1,300 attendees. Really puts in perspective the 175,000 registered attendees for Dreamforce 2015.

In June 2004 Salesforce goes public on the NYSE which was quickly followed by the launch of the  AppExchange in 2005. I do not know for sure, but I’m imagining this is also the birth of the famous #SafeHarbor statement which anyone who attends Dreamforce knows very well.
Back in 2008, the Salesforce logo was a red block with a white S in it:
This logo has a special place in my heart because it was the logo during the birth of the Salesforce Wizard… well specifically the hat. You can read all about that – including photos – here: hhttps://thewizardnews.com/2015/02/26/the-story-of-the-hat/

In July 2012, Salesforce applied to trademark the term “Social enterprise” leading the charge to Chatter, collaboration feed directly within Salesforce.

Coming back to the future, here we are in October 2015 and the Lightning Experience 2015 has arrived. A start to a great new user interface that is more than a facelift color change. It may not be ready for every customer – especially if you enjoy URL Hacks and Custom buttons. It’s the future we have. Unlike Marty McFly there’s no going to the past to change the future. No sports almanac to get us in trouble. Thankfully, no possible way for us to screw up the romance between our parents and fade out of existence.

Now where is my hover board, flying cars, self-adjusting and drying clothes, and …. where’s my Delorean?

Check out some other Salesforce timelines here: http://www2.sfdcstatic.com/assets/pdf/misc/sfdc_15th_anniversary_infographic.pdf

You can also check out some great memories and photos about 15 years with salesforce on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/hashtag/Salesforce15?src=hash

Here’s one of my favorite:

"@salesforce: "Point. Click. Close." A look back at the Salesforce homepage from nearly 15 years ago. #Salesforce15 pic.twitter.com/dxtxewtfNg"

— Grzegorz Rusiecki (@grusiecki) March 29, 2015