Marc Benioff is the CEO of Salesforce, a company that pioneered cloud-based CRM and is considered one of the leaders in today’s cloud computing market. Benioff is also the latest person to vent Windows 8 hate.

Speaking to reporters after Salesforce’s Cloudforce show in Manhattan, New York, Benioff stated:

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

Windows 8 is going to make Windows irrelevant? Ouch!

To be fair to Microsoft and Windows 8, Benioff isn’t hating on Windows 8 per se. The above was said in a conversation where Benioff was remarking on the dynamics of the ever-changing technology landscape. After recalling how one of his customers told him she would not be upgrading her company to Windows 8, Benioff commented that CIOs (Chief Information Officers) of companies upgraded to Windows 7 in the past because desktops and laptops still ruled the land back then. Now consumers and businesses are more interested in smartphones and tablets than traditional computers; as such, Windows is becoming irrelevant. In other words, it isn’t necessarily Windows 8 that is making Windows irrelevant but rather smartphone and tablets are.

Of course it could be argued that Benioff was indirectly saying that Windows 8 offers nothing to counteract the pro-mobile trend, and this could be a valid argument. How ever you view his comments, they aren’t good for Microsoft.

That being said, Benioff seems to have forgotten that Windows 8 it is an excellent tablet operating system. So how Windows 8 can become irrelevant in a world that Benioff himself predicts will be dominated by smartphones and tablets is beyond me. It does serve as a nice headline, though.

[via VentureBeat, image via Wikipedia]