7 Cloud-Bursting Scenes From Dreamforce 2008

At its Dreamforce 2008 conference this week in San Francisco, Salesforce.com is really sledgehammering home the point that cloud computing is the future, perhaps stretching the whole 'cloud' analogy further than it has ever been stretched before.

Here are some examples: moving digital clouds projected on the walls and ceiling screens of the keynote hall; cloud-shaped beanbag chairs scattered around the show floor; 'I Voted Cloud' election buttons; and yes, folks, the blasting of The Rolling Stones 'Get Off Of My Cloud' prior to the keynote sessions.

As a service to readers who just can't get enough cloud analogies, ChannelWeb took a stroll around the Dreamforce 2008 venue and captured as many 'cloudy' scenes as we could find.

Salesforce distributed these buttons prior to Marc Benioff and Michael Dell's keynote on Tuesday morning, which also happened to be Election Day 2008. Further commentary on the buttons isn't really necessary.

Dreamforce attendees were confronted with this message pretty much everywhere they turned. At least one attendee even appeared to be overwhelmed by the cloud experience.

These amorphous blobs scattered throughout Moscone Center were apparently intended to be clouds, and to signify the ubiquity of cloud computing. But one Dreamforce attendee, who requested anonymity, said they looked more like a group of Pillsbury doughboys who'd had too much to drink at Monday night's Foo Fighters concert, which was sponsored by Salesforce.

The Oh! Zone Game Show attracted Dreamforce attendees with a Jeopardy-style arrangement of IT questions, most of which (you guessed it) were related to cloud computing.



Oh! Zone -- get it? It sounds like 'ozone', which is in the atmosphere, above the clouds.

OK, we get the whole 'Welcome to the Cloud' message. But was it really necessary to name the conference cafeteria 'Cloud Dine'? Someone probably should have been arrested for this one.

The Birds Of A Feather Roundtable Lunch offered Dreamforce attendees a chance to mingle and network with other conference-goers, and perhaps discuss subjects that don't involve over-the-top cloud analogies.

At OracleWorld in September, Oracle's chieftain railed against the industry's overuse of the term 'cloud,' calling the trend "insane" and "complete gibberish." These impressions would likely have been reinforced by even a quick stroll around the Dreamforce show floor.