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Salesforce.com's Benioff Disses Windows 8, Oracle
An anonymous reader writes "Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff is the latest to predict Windows 8 will be a disaster for Microsoft, but for a different reason than some others: he says that Windows is simply irrelevant in the new era of cloud computing and bring-your-own-devices (BYOD), which will become clear to corporate IT decision makers when they confront the upgrade decision. Of course, this conveniently dovetails with Salesforce's market position, so consider the source. Another interesting development is the growing rivalry between Benioff and his old boss Larry Ellison; Salesforce.com is a longtime Oracle shop, but they have just announced intentions to hire 40-50 PostgreSQL developers."
In addition to their cloudy-cloudness offerings, they've been anti-MS in other respects, directing some nastiness at microsofts old CRM solution.
Oddly, their doc merges only work right with IE, and they're usually about 3 versions behind on working Office plugins.
Not the finest development team on earth, in my opinion.
And open-source is where business wants to invest, (even though business still wants to buy Real support).
Migrating away from Oracle to something like PostgreSQL is just being prudent while mitigating costs (and strategic risks).
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
Windows (and, by extension, desktop computing) is irrelevant because people have iPads. Seriously, this guy is completely out of touch. It may be great for the CEO who never has to do any real work with a computer, but an iPad is wholly unsuitable for anything other than Angry Birds and checking your Facebook. It's a media consumption device, not something used to create and manipulate spreadsheets. The fact that "Windows is irrelevant" because of "the cloud" speaks to his complete misunderstanding of the technology.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
^^ I yet have to see a tablet that can keep up with twin octocores and a set of Quadros. Then again, that's technology that's used for real work.
Until Apple, and Google, or any other alternative device manufacturer actually understands the regulatory environment that all business operates under (and I do mean under), a traditional desktop/laptop experience, even if it is delivered virtually via something like Citrix, will be a requirement. Furthermore, the complete failure of Apple to understand the need to manage assets centrally, without Apple's interference, will keep them in the toy realm. No real business gets done on the iPad, regardless of what you fanbois believe.
More than the absence of the Start button, the Win 8 GUI will suffer from its lack of visual breathing space. Yeah, there's still apparently a nice selection of wallpapers, better than the default you'd get with the OSx, but the Start screen itself suffocates you with its billboard-like tiles.
Win XP had this refreshing image of a rolling green field beneath a blue skiy, the promise of a weekend escape into the country. Now the same office worker looking at the Win 8 start screen will see nothing but the loud artificial colors of the city. Is it that why MS had called it The Metro? Because it resembled those gaudy billboards at a subway station competing for the rush-hour commuter's fleeting attention?
What Mr. Benioff is forgetting is that Windows 8 is a throw-away version of Windows. Big business is too busy moving to Windows 7 from XP right now, they were going to skip Windows 8 no matter how good or bad it was! Microsoft has a long history of playing catch-up, and then overtaking the competition long after the competition thought they had the game sewed up. Windows 8 may be a colossal dud, but don't count Microsoft out yet.
Salesforce don't like the whole pay for it once and keep it model. They like the pay once a month (SaaS) model. They are also pretty shitty at giving data back when you want it. You can have it but it's a bastard to get it out.
BYOD + Salesforce is a wet dream for them which is why they're spinning it like this.
Unfortunately, a blanket statement here: It's just a 100% fucking retarded model that needs to go to hell.
You no longer have control over your data (lock in, data protection, availability, regulatory requirements).
You can't access it reliably *all of the time* (network issues, "cloud" outages).
You don't always know where your data is (Data protection issues).
You purchase purely a portal device rather than a general purpose computer (control, availability).
Your support sucks (availability).
At the end of the day, your cost cutting results in loss of your data, poor availability, data protection issues and legal exposure. Also do you want your clap-infested users' devices plugged into your network, authenticating against your web applications? Are you sure your business can handle all that?
I'd take Windows 8 (not RT) with local storage over the above any day and put it in a corporate environment. Hell, I'd even buy an Oracle license over it.
There's another factor if you're using cloud services for day-to-day operations - internet connectivity uptime.
The cloud service provider could be up, but if your internet connection is down you can't use the services.
In many countries the internet connectivity uptime is worse than internal server uptime when managed by a not too crappy IT team.
It's fine if the cloud services are for public facing operations - in which case the public user's internet connectivity is usually not your problem, they don't blame you if their connection is down.
From experience (I used to work for a well known SaaS provider but left when I saw what an absolute state it was all in), the teenager who lives next door to you and plays WoW on his infested laptop is less likely to fuck up then an average SaaS provider. As per any business, their objective is to maximise profit and to do this, they take seriously big risks and hope the hell the string and sticky tape doesn't go snap. When it does, you have no recourse as there are contracts to protect the profit-mongering. Using a "service provider" as you call them is akin to shutting your eyes, sticking your fingers in your ears and taking a whiz.
If you do your own IT in house, you have control over the standards and where your standards are implemented.
Enjoy the smartphone & tablet bubble while it lasts, but CYA because you never know when it'll come suddenly crashing down. Over night, Apple will go from the king of all companies, to one that is painfully obviously over-valued with stock prices in a decline that seems like it won't ever end. And analysts will rant on about how obvious it was that Apple's non-diversified monoculture was such a bad idea, and claim they said so, before.
That's not to say smartphones or tablets will be going away... just that there's room and money for everyone ONLY while the segment is expanding like crazy. As soon as that growth even slows, the crunch will be sudden and extremely painful, as companies fall daily, and all the hype that helped keep accelerating the bubble suddenly does a 180 and fuels the crash even more quickly. And let's not forget, that the guys left for dead during the bubble will be revered by the business community for their stable strategy that didn't jump headlong into the hype.
Of course there will be plenty of cheap hardware at fire-sale prices to play with, for quite a while. And soon, the world will be restored to a much more sane place, where the distortion of the previous bubble is forgotten, and some other bubble starts growing.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
But the reality is that BYOD does not take off
BYOD did take off. In 2008 Macs were used in a tiny percentage of companies outside of artistic departments. Today something like 30% have to support Mac. In 2008 companies had RIM smartphones that were centrally purchased. Today they have iPhones and Android often bought with subsidy. In 2008 companies that had tablets had specialized ones. Today over 20% of all companies have to support iPad in a semi-official way.
As for Apple, Apple doesn't want to be an enterprise vendor. They don't want the business.
To put out a counter-point out: I've worked for two SaaS providers, and one where I had direct access to both our internal and the customer application and network information. The vast majority of cases, the issue was with the customer's network and application. In fact, at the first company, our service went down twice: when some moron dug up a fiber cable in Germany, and once when the company running our main data center decided to fuck up their routing table. At the second company, we had one major outage (more than a few hours) when some moron decided to propagate a network change without going through the proper approval process.
Is there spit and duct tape involved? Sure. Then again - that's not the real question. It's whether there's more duct tape and spit in your own organization or not.
From the numbers I saw, overall availability is hanging out 99.9% combined. Now, my laptops, both personal and professional, have already suffered more downtime - whether it is upgrades taking them down, maintenance requiring some amount of trouble-shooting and investigation (damn you Java).
If you do your own IT, you're also stuck with what resources you have. Most companies I know don't prioritize IT. Most people don't prioritize IT. For those, it makes sense to not have everything be in-house. That said, the mantra that you SHOULD put everything onto some outside server is nonsense. Even more so if they tell you that you don't need backups or local copies. If anyone ever tells you that, run screaming in the other direction.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I can put it in different words. Microsoft empire needs money - more and more money every year to continue to look like a company with a bright future. They started well by selling software for PCs when each PC was sold for thousands of dollars. Private deals with major PC makers resulted in inserting MS into the food chain (the MS tax.) MS was able to sell incremental copies of software at zero cost - they didn't even have to copy the bits, OEMs did that for them!
However today computing is no longer a luxury. Computing devices became cheap. If the hardware of your tablet costs $99 you cannot slap a $150 Windows on top of that. Windows blatantly exhaused its food supplies. Sure, it keeps selling Windows, and it will keep doing so for another decade. But in the end if they do nothing they will retrace the steps of Kodak - and of buggy whip makers before that.
As I said, MS empire runs on money. But fewer money is available to them with every new day. The whole concept of Windows is getting old. MS can read the writing on the wall just fine. That's why MS is in panic mode. Win8 is a truly desperate attempt to try and lock up the tablet market. But as usual this is too little and too late. Android is winning in the industry, and iOS is picking up the luxury market. MS has no market left to insert itself into - and they don't seem to have new ideas to make a new market for themselves. The more MS flops the more it distances itself from its customers. Win8, for example, will not be accepted in the enerprise - not now, not ever - simply because Win8 offers nothing of value to engineers and researchers and coders.
The example of Kodak is actually fitting. Kodak lived off of the expensive film and chemistry, where you paid $1 for each printed photo. That was a nice racket while it lasted. But now I can buy a $10 SD card and take thousands of photos onto it - and, look, I can reuse the SD card once I'm done! The whole business model of Kodak collapsed almost overnight. MS's business model is still standing, but it is based only on two cash cows - Windows and Office. And the Office is largely standing on the back of Windows. Sales of PCs to businesses, with Windows, are not threatened - but sales to consumers are not just threatened, they are already against the wall. As businesses defer upgrades for cost reasons (it's not exactly an economic boom out there) MS starts seeing smaller profits, and in 2012 they posted the first loss.