“The end of Microsoft. A door opens to a new cloud,” is the title of an article on CNNMoney.com by Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Sales Force. This is the second article that I have come across by this guy, who so eloquently describes the differences and the paradigm shift between the different generations of computing technologies.

“From mainframes (70s) to minicomputers (80s) to PCs and LANs (90s) to Cloud 1-the desktop Internet (2000s) to Cloud 2-the mobile Internet (2010+), we can safely say that the only constant in the last 50 years of computing is change.”

I know, I know…  he is promoting his company’s direction and their newest product, Chatter, a business collaboration platform. And he is a big fan of Apple and Steve Jobs. No, his title is not describing the death of a monster, or evil incarnate, but rather the transition from one dominant model to another. (I would say that the new model will have several dominate companies, but be less controlled by any one of them.) All that aside, his clear concrete description of the new model is what excites me.

Only the future will tell us the truth of his description, or how useful the model. I intend to follow where he is going and what he is saying. It will be interesting. Beyond that, it is the train that we are all riding, whether or not we know it or can describe it.