Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: Windows 8 is ‘the end of Windows’

Venture Beat ^ | 10/21/2012 | Sean Ludwig

[SeekAndFind]

NEW YORK CITY --- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, always game for a little tech trash talk, said that Microsof's Windows 8 operating system would be "the end of Windows" and that "Windows is irrelevant."

Benioff, answering questions at a press conference at the Cloudforce show in Manhattan, mostly kept to the script of promoting Salesforce's cloud services during the QandA session with reporters and analysts. The main Cloudforce keynote mostly mimicked all the announcements at Dreamforce last month, except for the just-announced addition of 20 social analytics services to its Marketing Cloud.

Veering off-script (or was it?), Benioff talked about Windows 8 in regard to the entire computing market. He first spoke about a conversation he had had with an exec-level Salesforce customer and how this customer said she wouldn't move her company to Windows 8.

Then, Benioff turned to his own thoughts on the new Microsoft OS, which launches Oct. 26. He said that people were not having frequent conversations about traditional computers anymore — people are instead talking about which smartphones and tablets they want to buy. He name-checked the iPhone 5 and the Kindle Fire HD as examples.

With that in mind, Windows 8, he noted, was no longer important. He said CIOs had upgraded to Windows 7 because they didn’t have another choice, but now things have changed.

“Windows 8 is the gambit — will [CIOs] upgrade, or will they do something else?” Benioff said. “It’s the end of Windows. … Windows is irrelevant.”

To be fair, Windows 8 will work on desktops, laptops, and laptop/tablet hybrid computers. That flexibility means the OS can help equip all kinds of devices that employees might want or need. Enterprises could adopt Windows 8 tablet hybrids like the Samsung’s ATIV Smart PCs, for example.

And then we’ve got Windows RT, which looks a lot like Windows 8 and runs on ARM-based tablets. Microsoft’s first Surface tablet runs RT and includes a version of Office installed. It looks to like a tool enterprises might take a look at versus Apple’s iPad.

Even with those caveats, Benioff’s words were certainly eye-popping and something that could echo with CEOs and CIOs across the enterprise. As a visionary for cloud computing and cloud-based software, his words carry weight.

[GunRunner]

Too bad we can’t see the end of SalesForce. I have to use that piece of crap every day. It’s an application written by and for finance people, not salespeople. Faulty plugins, sluggish performance, cumbersome integration, and a needlessly complicated UI. It’s the Windows of CRMs; everybody uses it, and those who do, hate it.

[Jonty30]

Let me be more clear here. First, I agree with anybody who says that Windows 8 will not be a grand success on the desktop.

It’s been my observation that the reason why Berne every second Windows tends to be disruptive in introducing new technologies to desktops, but the after tends to have those disruptions mainstreamed. Microsoft seems to know that and works with it.

This is why Vista, though being a very good operating system, was bitched about. However, Windows 7 is the fastest selling operating system in computing history.

Windows 8 is disruptive, but Windows 9, if history is any indication, will be a very successful operating system mainstreaming all the disruptive technologies that are being introduced by 8.

[Revolting cat!]

Yes, I know, and it is to his eternal shame as he was a VAX/VMS architect before getting hired by Billy Gates to go slumming in Seattle. At that time, the DCL shell made system calls (via lexical functions), the editor was the best ever, clustering was available, multi-version filesystem that to this day UNIX hasn’t “invented”, many other things. Slumming, that’s what Cutler did.

[RockyMtnMan]

I think you underestimate the size and complexity of the PC universe. The sheer multitude of third party hardware vendors would be a nightmare for an OS maker. Something Apple avoids by make you buy their hardware (since the beginning). Microsoft has made missteps for sure but I wouldn’t say Apple has demonstrated competence in the same way.

[Jonty30]

That’s probably my main concern about the cloud, reducing computing back to the dumb terminal. I will probably be the last guy in the world to adopt cloud storage.

I hate the concept.

[DaxtonBrown]

I work all day every day on my home office computer, a power user. Word, spreadsheets, cad, java, web development, media. If the new operating system doesn’t speed up my ability to do computer geek stuff essential to business, I won’t touch it, I can always go to Linux 24/7

So it sounds, like you said that, Win 8 will die on the UI

[NVDave]

Um, no. Wang and Honeywell made mainframes as well as terminals. They also made the usual full line of disks, tapes, etc that were usually OEM products (like CDC disk drives, emulex tapes, etc).

The reason why Wang went under was the Dr. An Wang passed away and the next generation of corporate leadership had the technical IQ of a roach.

Honeywell just never really smart at how they marketed their products. They could never seem to get the major application developers to step up to putting out products on Honeywell mainframes and on Honeywell OS’s. When Oracle came along, you could see what was going to determine the future of a major mainframe/super-mini platform: Oracle. Oracle enabled some vendors to compete against IBM and DB2... and when a vendor didn’t have a port of Oracle on their platform... it was pretty much forward and down for them.

I participated (briefly) in the effort to port Oracle to Wang VS systems. It was like pounding a square peg into a round hole. But they got it done. Still, it was too late to save Wang from internal corporate malfeasance.

Honeywell made some nice gear. I didn’t get to play with it much, but I thought CP-6 was a hell of an OS. It got caught up in the four or five-way tug-of-war inside Honeywell for resources as they thought they were going to migrate everything over to Multics.

[RegulatorCountry]

Apple makes the whole widget, so of course their devices are superior as far as cross-platform connectivity with one another.

You cannot say that with Microsoft because they do not make the whole widget, in fact every attempt to do so has flopped rather spectacularly, other than x-box which is a gaming platform.

The OS licensing model in use by Microsoft regarding hardware is insufficiently standardized to even begin to promise cross-platform connectivity “without missing a beat.” The fragmentation is even worse among mobile devices than it is in the PC realm.

[NVDave]

I think he may have a point. Windows 8 might not be the “end,” but Windows 7 is certainly the beginning of the end.

You can see the end coming on Macs as well. Look at Mountain Lion - they’re starting to blur the line between the iPad world and the OS X world - and the blurring is happening in the direction of the portable devices.

The problem for MSFT is that there’s just not much more than users need out of Windows. I’m running Windows 7 and WinXP in a VM on two different machines, and quite frankly, unless an app needs some feature of Win7, there’s no difference to me. Both OS’s do everything I need. There’s some nice features in Win7 (system checkpointing, some of the hardware installation and licensing has been made smoother), but there’s nothing in Win7 that screams “YOU MUST HAVE THIS NOW.”

There’s even less in WIn8 that screams out to me “BUY ME.”

Once MSFT got beyond the cluster that was Vista, things got pretty calm and orderly.

[RegulatorCountry]

Um, no. Wang and Honeywell made mainframes as well as terminals

That's what I wrote if I'm not mistaken, lol.

[NVDave]

yes, I skipped over your previous reply. Mea culpa.

The typical Wang terminal, BTW, wasn’t a wholly dumb terminal. Pretty slick piece of engineering, actually. They had a Z-80 at 6Mhz (if memory serves) running in the terminal. When you were doing the normal mainframe stuff, it acted like a typical 3270.

But when you wanted to run Wang’s word processing s/w, ah... now things got interesting. The mainframe downloaded a screen editor to the terminal, and you then got a couple screens forward/back in your document downloaded to the terminal as well. You could edit to your heart’s content, in fully interactive mode (which wasn’t a strength of the 3270 style interface) and when you’d page up or down, the program would flush those changes back to the mainframe, which would then merge them into your doc.

Very, very slick... for the day.

Then Wang came out with a PC attached to the mainframe via the “928” interface. Humorous story about the name of the interface: The marketing and sales people were supposedly holding a meeting about what they were going to call this new interface card that would allow a x86 PC to interface to a Wang. They were bickering and going back and forth over names, etc.

Dr. Wang was in the meeting. After awhile, he looks at his watch, clears his throat and quietly said “We will call it the 928 interface” and he left the meeting.

A very, very bright chap. Got to meet him once. I was blown away that a CEO of a computer company could have that level of technical IQ. He was like meeting Bill or Dave from HP. Knew his stuff. Sadly, his son didn’t know jack, and after Dr. Wang’s passing, his playboy son fiddled while Rome burned, so to speak.

[BereanBrain]

Microsoft is now basically ahead of everybody as to where computing is heading

I have a BS, MS in CS and 30 years in Computing, and that statement is about as far from the truth as the IRAQI Minister's during the IRAQ war.

Let me ask you a single question that stops all the MSoft fan-boys cold.

After your experience running Windows (forced reboots, blue screens) would you get on an airplane where the airplane control was Windows based?

Windows only matter for stuff that doesn't matter. You can't build ANYTHING highly reliable (enterprise, embedded or appliance) with it. The dedicated desktop is dying.....and so will Windows.

That being said W8 is better, it's just too late. Microsoft is "leading from behind". Maybe they should spend less time copying Apple, and playing in Media (MSNBC they just ditched) and more time ENGINEERING.

[catnipman]

” On business and home PCs it’s gonna die the gooey death, even though MS will try to force it down everybody’s throat like Vista, what do you say we revisit this exchange in 3 or 4 years? “

It will take less than a year for the revisitation you envision. And it ain’t gonna be purrty atall for Microsoft.

[JoeRed]

The Windows 8 UI is designed for touchscreen devices. The idea that it will be the end of Windows is a farce. It wont be long before all programs are designed for touchscreen, not just little android apps and ipad apps.

[NVDave]

No, they’re going to go whereever they can minimize their expenses and costs to run their computing needs.

If someone can come up with a “cloud” solution that really has the stats for uptime to show that they can exceed the availability of locally managed computers... I think you’ll see some companies shift away from desktop platforms and go to networked devices for those users who don’t need the resources of a desktop machine.

I’ve seen this happen in several waves now: First it was mainframes. Everyone said that mainframes would be the only way companies ran their computing forever. Then PC’s and the Unix mafia came in through the side door, and mainframe computing became a fairly specialized resource for specialized applications, many with legacy behind them.

Then PC’s exceeded the capabilities of a lot of engineering workstations, and workstations died.

Then companies started seeing that using laptops gave many of their employees mobility - as long as data was kept on corporate servers for backup.

Now I think the next jump is to mobile devices for a lot of users. Tablets, pads and ultra-light notebooks with SSD’s appears to be the future direction. Not all PC’s will disappear off desks, of course, but the growth of the PC industry will hit a wall, just as the mainframe/super-mini/mini/workstation markets hit their walls. They’re still around, but they’re not where the growth is.

[Jonty30]

Im sure his son did well enough, even if he put thousands out of work with his lack of appreciation.

Or, did his dad cut him out of the will, like I would have?

[NVDave]

I don’t want to get on an airliner where the FMS is programmed in C++, much less Windows.

MSFT is having the same problem so many computing companies that were started by techies have had: They handed the control over to a salesman.

This has resulted in the death or near-death of the following companies:

1. Wang.
2. DEC.
3. Apple (in the early/mid 90’s) - Apple looks like they’re riding high now, but they were nearly dead in the mid-90’s.
4. HP - broken up and doing jack-all for innovation now.

Balmer just doesn’t know what to do or how to lead a technical company. He knows how to plump up sales through various machinations, but he can’t do what needs to be done.

What needs to be done to MSFT now is about what Gates did to MSFT in the early 90’s, when Gates first thought that the Internet was just a flash in the pan. When, by ‘94 to ‘95, it was clear that the Internet was going to take off like a homesick angel, Gates made MSFT do a 180 in the parking lot at warp speed. I have to give him credit, he made that company (which was already pretty large) turn on a dime.

Now the same type of challenge is in front of them and they don’t have the leadership to turn it around...

[Jonty30]

I bought my Windows 7 PC, when it came out. It seems a couple of years ago.

I have been keeping it in sleep mode all of the time, except when I have updated something and it tells me to restart.

I have opened and closed programs on it several times a day.

I have not yet had the blue screen of death on Windows 7 yet. That doesn’t mean I won’t, I just haven’t. That has been my experience.

[MarkL]

I doubt that it is the end of Windows. Are corporations really going to throw out billions of dollars of infrastructure, not to mention date, to go with Apple?

In the home market, this guy might be correct, but in the business market, NO WAY! The PC may be going away though... For instance, at my company we're currently moving away from "real" PCs at the desktop, replacing them with "Zero Client" devices. Basicly, this is a network device that allows you to run remote sessions, just a box with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor(s) attached, connected to your network. The beauty of this sort of system is that the actual computer session is running on a heavy duty server in the data center, so if the power is lost in your location, when it comes back on, you're right where you were when you lost your connection. It's also completely device independant. For instance, you have full access to all your data and applications from anywhere there's Internet access, and it can be from an iPad, iPhone, PC, MacBook, or iMac. You run the VMware View client, and all of a sudden you have your Windows workstation on whatever hardware you're actually using. The technology is known as "Virtualization."

Mark

[Squawk 8888]

The last Windows version to load on top of DOS was ME. Every version from NT through 7 runs on the NT kernel.