Salesforce.com Imbues Dreamforce With Artificial Intelligence and Mindfulness

Salesforce.com Inc. CRM 0.18 % 's annual Dreamforce customer conference, set to blanket downtown San Francisco next week, will be an unusual blend of business, technology, entertainment, philanthropy and personal empowerment. The conference, which is the world's largest tech get-together sponsored by a single company, will be an expression of the business-software provider's socially conscious corporate culture and the idiosyncratic character of its Chief Executive Marc Benioff. The event, which is expected to draw 170,000 attendees--17% more than last year--comes as Salesforce, whose public profile to date has been confined largely to salespeople and marketers, is stepping onto a larger stage. The company on Thursday vowed to block Microsoft Corp. MSFT 0.35 % 's 26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn Corp. LNKD 0.13 %, after failing in its own effort to buy the online network of 450 million mostly professional members. Meanwhile, Salesforce is considering a bid for the consumer-focused messaging service Twitter.