In a recent development, Bob Wise, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Heroku, a cloud platform as a service (PaaS) owned by Salesforce, has left the company. This news was confirmed to TechCrunch through a statement via email from a Salesforce spokesperson.
Bob Wise’s Departure
According to the spokesperson, "Bob Wise has left Salesforce for his next career move." The statement also expressed appreciation for Wise’s contributions to both Heroku and Salesforce, saying, "We appreciate all that Bob has done for Salesforce and Heroku and we wish him well."
Wise’s Background and Rise to CEO
Bob Wise joined Heroku as a General Manager (GM) from Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he was the Kubernetes GM and head of the open source program office. He was promoted to CEO of Heroku in 2023, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Wise’s Tenure at Heroku
Wise’s rise to CEO came over a decade after Salesforce acquired Heroku for $212 million in cash in 2010. Heroku is a platform that allows programmers to build, run, and scale apps across multiple programming languages, including Java, PHP, and Go.
Notable Setbacks During Wise’s Tenure
Under Wise’s leadership, Heroku has faced several setbacks. One notable incident was a security breach in which attackers obtained an access token for a Heroku account that was used for automation purposes.
In addition, in August 2022, Heroku announced that its free plans would be discontinued due to fraud and abuse issues. Some users were unhappy with this decision and expressed their opinions on social media.
Wise’s Efforts to Engage with the Developer Community
Despite these setbacks, Wise made efforts to engage with the developer community by posting a public roadmap of Heroku’s features and soliciting suggestions for improvements. However, his departure is likely to have an impact on Heroku’s efforts to regain market share in the competitive PaaS sector.
The Future of Heroku
Salesforce has not yet announced plans for a replacement for Wise. Additionally, Heroku still lacks a Chief Product Officer (CPO) after its previous CPO, Andy Fawcett, moved back to the UK to assume the role of VP of developer relations.
Related News and Developments
The departure of Bob Wise from Heroku is a significant development in the tech industry. As mentioned earlier, the PaaS sector has become increasingly competitive in recent years, with companies like Porter, Railway, Render, Fly.io, and Clever Cloud vying for market share.
Conclusion
Bob Wise’s departure as CEO of Heroku will likely have far-reaching implications for the company’s future direction and competitiveness in the market. As the tech industry continues to evolve, it remains to be seen how Salesforce and Heroku will adapt to these changes and what the future holds for this cloud platform as a service.
About the Author
Kyle Wiggers is a senior reporter at TechCrunch with a special interest in artificial intelligence. His writing has appeared in VentureBeat and Digital Trends, as well as various gadget blogs such as Android Police, Android Authority, Droid-Life, and XDA-Developers.
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