Convertiv | Social Media Agency |

Sometimes in life you look at the flaws or how things could have been to understand what may be next. With the all the speculation on the iPad release, its easy to focus on the downside.  By now we’ve all heard of the imperfections: lack of flash support, no camera, no voice support (SMS and calling not supported) and no USB or microSD support.  Sure, from the surface level, those are all potential red flags which could hold up purchasing decisions.  However, if we rewind back a few years it seems eerily similar to the disadvantages of the iPhone: no multi-tasking, one carrier network, issues with 3G data connectivity, dropping calls etc.  As a society we are so quick to tear down new products and services, we miss the quintessential meaning of how they will transcend our daily lives.

Even when you consider the inefficiencies of the iPad (pre release!), it’s important to remember our past and not just what this device means to us on a personal level.  More importantly, consider how this could impact the technology landscape as a whole.  I’ve been excited about the iPad for sometime, however, it has been difficult to understand the all encompassing impact this product will have on the industry.  But, as fate would have it, Marc Benioff chimed in on Tech Crunch in a guest blog post and enlightened me:

The future of our industry now looks totally different than the past. It looks like a sheet of paper, and it’s called the iPad. It’s not about typing or clicking; it’s about touching. It’s not about text, or even animation, it’s about video. It’s not about a local disk, or even a desktop, it’s about the cloud. It’s not about pulling information; it’s about push. It’s not about re purposing old software, it’s about writing everything from scratch (because you want to take advantage of the awesome potential of the new computers and the new cloud—and because you have to reach this pinnacle). Finally, the industry is fun again.

What’s most exciting is that this fundamental transformation—cloud + social + iPad—will inspire a new generation of wildly innovative new apps that will change entire industries.

Our industry has gone through many shifts, but ultimately, the big ones have always been about software, not hardware. Now, we are seeing a simultaneous software and hardware revolution. The key apps we use in productivity, collaboration, communication, entertainment, education, and even health, will all be rewritten to take advantage of the new capabilities. This will result in a new generation that looks more like Facebook on the iPad than Yahoo on the PC. Our industry is changing. We all need to step up to meet this change head-on or we will leave an incredible opportunity behind.

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff gets it.  Its not about the hardware or software, its about the profound impact a device like the iPad can have by being the missing link to ignite the next revolution.