Personal View: Marc Benioff
This is the latest in our series on what it would take to turn Apple’s impending tablet computer into a true breakthrough product – and prompt gadget lovers to actually go out and buy one. Scroll down for earlier posts.
“Anyone with a Kindle knows that getting a book in ten seconds is an incredible experience. But the Kindle is a pioneering product, not a great product. I have several: it’s not an Apple quality product. The Kindle is the IBM PC of tablets.
That’s really the opportunity: for Steve Jobs to wave his magic wand, twinkle his eye, stomp his feet, and deliver the magic product that is cool and fun and easy.
It needs to offer a lot of the functionality of the Kindle, like getting a book fast, but also things the Kindle is really terrible at, like browsing the Web or adding new applications.
Number one, you’re going to use tablets to read books and newspaper and magazines. I live part time in Hawaii and getting magazines and newspapers is almost impossible. Reading it on a computer is very difficult.
When you get a newspaper on a Kindle, you don’t even see the front page, you just see columns of text. It’s very poorly done. When you get it on the Apple tablet you will have the ability to really have that experience. I think Apple will make it fun.
Jeff Bezos has done an amazing thing by showing the power of the idea where others have failed. But it doesn’t have the fun.
The other opportunity is home control. You can’t really control your home very effectively with an iPhone or a BlackBerry, the device is too small. You don’t need a 15 or 17 inch screen. But you do need a 9 or 10 inch screen to manage your TVs, lights, security, cameras – all of those things can be done on a tablet.
I wouldn’t give up my iPhone. I think this is a new category of device, I think it’s a new capability.”
Marc Benioff is CEO of Salesforce.com. He was talking to Richard Waters.
