A Comprehensive Guide to Past and Present Salesforce Cloud Names

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” bellowed Juliet from the balcony down to Romeo. For Juliet, the family name of her lover did not matter, for Romeo’s qualities transcended his name.

Likewise, the qualities of Salesforce Cloud platforms surpass the names that they are given. Yet, like the deep frustrations of Juliet, societies do attach strong connections between the name of a “person” — or “thing” — and its “abilities.” Put very plainly, names matter. And in the world of commerce, names can help or hurt your company — and can even be elevated into daily conversation (you can do some googling while whatsapping a friend).

Across the vast landscape of Salesforce Clouds, in a quiet and restful area, stands a local meme factory slowly churning out deeply internal jokes that few of us would ever understand. To add to this niche collection, we even have one of our own!

One of the ongoing slight confusions of Salesforce Clouds — that occasionally spark humor and giggles — regards their many names. Why is Commerce Cloud sometimes called Demandware? What’s the difference between Marketing Cloud and Pardot?

But thanks to Salesforce’s giant network of cloud-based platforms of varying ages, along with its list of acquisitions of other cloud platforms (along with their names), it makes sense that there is confusion over each cloud name. Developers who had worked under a cloud’s previous guise may still refer to it by the old name (like Demandware instead of Commerce Cloud).

So let’s clear things up and by looking at the past and present names of Salesforce Cloud names.

Demandware = Commerce Cloud

Beginning life in the early noughties, the software tech company Demandware started to provide a cloud-based ecommerce platform that united mobile, order management capabilities, and artificial intelligence, both for B2B and B2C companies. After a decade of success, and listed in Forbes’ Top Tech Picks for 2013, Demandware was acquired by Salesforce in 2016 for $2.8 billion. And subsequently, Demandware was renamed Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

ExactTarget, Keymail Marketing, CoTweet = Marketing Cloud & Pardot

Another millennial beginning, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the reincarnation of ExactTarget, that provided software and services for digital marketing and analytics. Growing in size, ExactTarget acquired platforms such as Keymail Marketing in 2009 and then CoTweet in 2010. And then in 2012, the marketing automation vendor Pardot was also bought for $96 million. 

In the same year, ExactTarget’s revenue grew 40% on the previous year. The following year, ExactTarget was acquired by Salesforce for $2.5 billion, and was integrated with Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud. Then in 2014 the reference to the original name was dropped, leaving us with what we now know as Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Yet that’s not all folks. Salesforce Marketing Cloud applies to B2C marketing, while Pardot had a makeover and is now the name for the Salesforce cloud that focuses on B2B marketing. In a word, for B2C marketing use Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and for B2B marketing use Pardot.

EdgeSpring, Einstein Analytics = Analytics Cloud

The business intelligence platform Edgespring sprouted relatively recently in 2010, offering business intelligence solutions. The next three years were action-packed, picking up a number of high-profile brands such as Pandora, AppSense, and Neustar. In 2013, Salesforce picked up EdgeSpring for an undisclosed fee and became part of the cloud family — restructured as Wave Analytics. Some years later this was remodeled as Einstein Analytics to honor the powerful AI system of Einstein, which is the engine across many Salesforce cloud platforms, including Analytics Cloud, which ties together data across sources and displays interactive viewing points.

As we can see, current names each have a history of their own, and their past lives are very much part of the present — hence the reason why Salesforce acquires top-rate platforms that boost their own strengths. Salesforce cloud names have evolved in the past few years, and we would be foolish to think that their current names are permanent. It would serve us well to keep an eye in the sky, and track their movements — in case they are reshaped and renamed.

PS: UV is one of the world’s leading Salesforce Commerce Cloud (Demandware) development & strategy teams. Contact us to see how we can work together.