# What happened to Vlocity A business case is often agreed in a room where everyone already accepts that Vlocity and Salesforce CPQ are one quoting programme. That agreement is the problem: the names sit near each other, and they are different purchases. **Published:** 2025-12-23 **Canonical:** https://synconai.com/what-happened-to-vlocity **Author:** SynconAI Architecture Team ## In short Salesforce bought Vlocity in 2020 and it became Salesforce Industries. Industries CPQ is not Salesforce CPQ from SteelBrick, which was bought in 2016 and still shows SBQQ. The cited record prints no purchase price, no licence fee, and no end date. Buying the vertical product does not finish a data-model design. ## Sources - **The ultimate guide to Salesforce product rebrands** (retrieved 2026-10-10) https://gearset.com/blog/salesforce-product-rebrands/ > Vlocity, acquired in 2020, became Salesforce Industries (or Industries Cloud) providing deep, industry-specific solutions. ## What to take away - Write Vlocity, 2020, Salesforce Industries on its own line, and do not start a Salesforce CPQ timeline at that purchase. - If SBQQ is in the org, record it as SteelBrick, 2016, a different acquisition, rather than as part of Vlocity. - Read any industry fee from the contract for the package that is installed, and do not copy a price from a record that prints none. - Refuse an end date for Industries, including SteelBrick's end-of-sale phase and a retirement borrowed from Social Studio, Audience Studio, or SalesforceIQ. ## The guide A business case says Vlocity on the cover and Salesforce CPQ in the architecture, and the room has already agreed the two are one quoting programme. The names feel close because both can sit in a quoting conversation. They are not the same acquisition. The agreement is easy, and it is the problem. One diagram has merged a 2020 purchase with a 2016 purchase, and then treated the merge as if it were a design. The distinction that matters is which company, which year, and which prefix. Salesforce bought Vlocity in 2020. It became Salesforce Industries. Industries CPQ is not Salesforce CPQ from SteelBrick. SteelBrick was bought in 2016, became Salesforce CPQ, and still shows SBQQ in the metadata. Buying the vertical product does not finish a data-model design. That design is not settled by the cover. ::: note Salesforce bought Vlocity in 2020. It became Salesforce Industries. Industries CPQ is not Salesforce CPQ from SteelBrick. The cited record does not publish a purchase price, a licence fee, or an end date. ::: What follows are the questions that keep the two purchases apart. Each has a good answer and a bad answer. The difference is whether the answer names 2020, Salesforce Industries, the SBQQ prefix, or a package someone can open in the org. A general answer is how two acquisitions become one false project. A DVD, a Reddit thread, a YouTube clip, a TikTok, a course, a book, or a certification is not a source for the date, the price, or a shutdown. ## The five, and what a bad answer signals | Question | Who has to answer it | What a bad answer usually means | | --- | --- | --- | | 1. Was Vlocity bought, and what did it become | Whoever owns the business case, from the rebrand record | The sentence is stretched into a list of industries or a finished design | | 2. Which date can you defend, and whose year is 2016 | Whoever is drawing the timeline | Vlocity is dated to SteelBrick, or SBQQ is dated to 2020 | | 3. Who owns it, and is Industries CPQ the SBQQ product | The person who can open the package, and whoever holds the industry contract | One CPQ box is fed by both purchases | | 4. What was paid | Procurement, from the cited record and from your own contract | A price is copied from silence, or from the SteelBrick record | | 5. Does Industries have an end date | Whoever is being asked to replace Vlocity because it was acquired | SteelBrick's end-of-sale phase, or another product's retirement, is pinned here | ## 1. Was Vlocity bought, and what did it become? The question is not whether the cover says a word people still use. It is what the 2020 purchase became, in the sentence that records it. Yes. Salesforce bought Vlocity in 2020. The rebrand record says what it became, and the sentence is quoted once: "Vlocity, acquired in 2020, became Salesforce Industries (or Industries Cloud) providing deep, industry-specific solutions." Salesforce Industries, or Industries Cloud, is the name in that sentence. The sentence calls the result deep, industry-specific solutions. It does not list your industry for you, and it does not say the purchase finished a design. Industries the sentence does not name are not added here, and screens the sentence does not show are not described here. The acquisition, as the record can tell it, is the 2020 purchase and the rename to Salesforce Industries. It is not news that SteelBrick CPQ was replaced, and it is not news that an industry cloud was switched off. People still say Vlocity because statements of work, partner slides, and old logins kept the word. The word is the company that was bought. The product name to use now is Salesforce Industries. If a room cannot say which package is in the org, it is not ready to say what happened beyond the year and the rename. **A good answer sounds like** the sponsor of the business case saying Salesforce bought Vlocity in 2020, the product is Salesforce Industries, and the sentence's "industry-specific solutions" is a description, not a list of sectors and not a finished data model. **A bad answer sounds like** Vlocity means our industry, on these screens, and the purchase completed the design. The sentence does not name your sector. It does not show a screen. Buying the vertical product does not finish the design. An industry cloud still needs a data model. ## 2. Which date can you defend, and whose year is 2016? 2020. That is the year in the quoted sentence. The sentence does not add a month, a day, or a separate announcement date. A timeline that needs a season is more precise than the record. Searches for an acquisition date, an announcement, and a timeline get 2020. If a contract needs a completion day, the contract is the document. A day from an article that is not cited is not a date worth repeating. Do not place 2020 next to SteelBrick's 2016 and call them one quoting programme. The years are both purchases. They produced different products. A timeline of Salesforce CPQ that starts at Vlocity has started at the wrong deal. Write Vlocity, 2020, Salesforce Industries. Write SteelBrick on its own line, or leave it off this history. The prefix SBQQ belongs to the SteelBrick product. If someone dates that prefix to 2020, they have attached the wrong year to the wrong metadata. Check the package before you correct them. The years are not to be swapped. **A good answer sounds like** the architect writing Vlocity, 2020, Salesforce Industries on one line, and, if SBQQ is in the org, writing SteelBrick, 2016, Salesforce CPQ on a second line. **A bad answer sounds like** the CPQ acquisition was 2020, or the SBQQ objects arrived with Vlocity. 2020 is Vlocity. 2016 is SteelBrick. The prefix belongs to the earlier product. A single timeline titled CPQ has not yet said which company it means. ## 3. Who owns it, and is Industries CPQ the SBQQ product? Salesforce owns it. Vlocity is not, on these facts, an independent company you still buy as Vlocity. The product is Salesforce Industries. Industries CPQ is not Salesforce CPQ from SteelBrick. Say that whenever a diagram uses CPQ as if it were one object. Industry quoting, where you have it, is not the SBQQ product unless you have actually installed that package too. Owning both is possible. Assuming both from one word is how scopes double. Who owns a particular industry process on a Monday is your organisation. Who owns the product is Salesforce. A licence for Sales Cloud does not, by itself, include an industry cloud. The sentence says industry-specific solutions. It does not say every org received them in 2020. Someone searching who owns Vlocity often lands on a page about Salesforce CPQ, because the letters match. The match is the trap. Salesforce CPQ is the SteelBrick product, acquired in 2016, still marked SBQQ. That product is in an end-of-sale phase for new customers. The phase is not a switch-off date even for those orgs, and it is not a fact about Vlocity. If a result explains end of sale, it is explaining the other product. A list of acquisitions can show both companies. The list does not merge them. **A good answer sounds like** a named administrator opening the org, writing Salesforce Industries for the industry package, and writing a second line only if SBQQ is actually installed, with the industry contract held apart from a Sales Cloud licence. **A bad answer sounds like** CPQ is CPQ, Salesforce owns it, and every org received the industry cloud in 2020. The letters match. The products do not. A Sales Cloud licence is not an industry cloud. The sentence does not say every org was given one. ## 4. What was paid? The record cited here does not publish a purchase price or a licence fee. How much Salesforce paid, and how much Vlocity was sold for, are not on that record. A remembered figure does not fill the gap. What you pay for an industry cloud, if you have one, is your contract. It is not printed here. Do not derive it from a deal value you cannot cite, and do not copy a price from the SteelBrick record. That record does not publish a price either. Two silences do not make a number. Why Salesforce acquired Vlocity, and why Vlocity sold, are not in the quoted sentence. The sentence gives the year, the new name, and the character of the solutions. It does not give a motive. "Industry depth" is in the sentence as a description of the solutions, not as a strategy memo you can extend. Impact on customers, as far as the record will say it, is the rename to Salesforce Industries. Customers were not given an end date. They were not told that Industries CPQ and Salesforce CPQ are one product. A business case that leads with a purchase price is using a number this record does not contain. **A good answer sounds like** procurement stating that the 2020 record is silent, that the SteelBrick record is also silent, and that any industry fee is read from the contract for the package that is actually installed. **A bad answer sounds like** we will use the other acquisition's price, or a number someone recalls, because both deals are CPQ. Neither cited record prints a deal value. Two silences are not a fee. The contract, if you hold an industry cloud, is the licence. ## 5. Does Industries have an end date? The record does not give Industries an end date. Do not invent one. Shutdown and sunset searches are not answered with SteelBrick's end-of-sale phase. That phase belongs to Salesforce CPQ. It is not a switch-off date even there, and it is not a date for Vlocity. The old company name can look retired because people stopped saying it. A quiet name is not a notice. If the industry package is in the org, the product is Salesforce Industries under the current name. If it is not in the org, you do not have a hidden Vlocity waiting to be switched off. You have an absence. Do not brief an exit from a package you cannot open. Do not borrow a retirement from Social Studio, Audience Studio, or SalesforceIQ and attach it to this name. Those products have their own endings. Industries is not given one. None of those endings is a sentence about Vlocity. A roadmap that says Vlocity must be replaced because it was acquired in 2020 has treated a purchase as an expiry. The purchase is the start of the Salesforce Industries name, not the end of it. If someone asks whether customers were forced from Vlocity onto a single quoting engine, the record does not say that. Forced and worth-it need the package you can open. **A good answer sounds like** the package owner showing Salesforce Industries in the org, or showing that it is absent, and refusing a sunset taken from SteelBrick's end-of-sale phase or from Social Studio, Audience Studio, or SalesforceIQ. **A bad answer sounds like** it was acquired in 2020, so it expires, and the CPQ end-of-sale quarter covers it. 2020 is the start of the Industries name. End of sale is the other product, and even there it is not a switch-off date. A quiet company name is not a notice. ## What to do with the answers Read the five as a set. Specific answers keep two purchases on two lines. General answers mean the room has agreed that the letters CPQ are one object, which is how the scopes double. Open the org and name the package. If it is the industry product, write Salesforce Industries, and write that it came from Vlocity in 2020. If you also see SBQQ, write a second line: that prefix is Salesforce CPQ from SteelBrick, a different acquisition. Four lines answer the searches. Bought in 2020. Now Salesforce Industries. Industries CPQ is not SteelBrick's CPQ. No price and no end date in the cited record. They do not design the data model. A slide titled "the CPQ acquisition" is too vague for this history. Ask which company, which year, and which prefix. Keep Vlocity in a glossary if old paper needs the word. Do not let the glossary absorb SteelBrick, and do not let it grow a shutdown. A board can carry those lines and no deal value. An industry cloud still needs a data model. Buying the vertical product does not finish the design. That work is on [the Vlocity implementation page](/vlocity-industry-clouds). ## Questions ### Did Salesforce buy Vlocity? Yes. Salesforce bought Vlocity in 2020. It became Salesforce Industries, or Industries Cloud. The sentence calls the result deep, industry-specific solutions. It does not list your industry, and it does not say the purchase finished a design. ### When did Salesforce acquire Vlocity? 2020. The cited sentence does not add a month. Do not date the SBQQ prefix to 2020. That prefix belongs to SteelBrick, bought in 2016. ### Who owns Vlocity? Salesforce. The product is Salesforce Industries. Industries CPQ is not Salesforce CPQ from SteelBrick. Owning both is possible. A Sales Cloud licence does not include an industry cloud, and the sentence does not say every org received one in 2020. ### How much did Salesforce pay for Vlocity? The cited record does not publish a purchase price or a licence fee. The SteelBrick record does not publish a price either. Two silences do not make a number. Any industry fee is on your contract. ### Is Vlocity shut down? Industries is not given an end date. SteelBrick's end-of-sale phase belongs to Salesforce CPQ, is not a switch-off date even there, and is not a date for Vlocity. Do not borrow a retirement from Social Studio, Audience Studio, or SalesforceIQ. --- SynconAI is a Salesforce Select Partner and an OpenAI Select Partner, delivering architect-led Salesforce and AI programmes across the United States and Australia. Related service: Salesforce consultancy (https://synconai.com/salesforce-consultancy).