Benioff: 4G will enable an enterprise to be run on an iPad

'When you have an iPad with LTE, you can run your whole enterprise on these services' - Benioff

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has claimed that marketing businesses will be "moving into an LTE world", dismissing the need for socially-connected platforms to use a superfast broadband network.

During a Q&A session at Dreamforce 2012, the company's annual user conference, Benioff said that broadband projects like those in Kansas City in the US and NBN in Australia were good as "the more bandwidth the better".

However, he claimed that the introduction of LTE (long-term evolution) technology - commercially known as 4G - will be the key technology to drive the consumerisation of IT in marketing.

"We are going to be moving into an LTE world, when you have an iPad with LTE, you are more than able to run your whole enterprise on these services - that is exciting," said Benioff.

Everything Everywhere (EE) has just launched the UK's first 4G network. EE's network will use LTE technology compatible with US networks Verizon and AT&T. Alternative HSPA+ networks, which are used in the US by T-Mobile, are faster than 3G networks but not as fast as LTE - although still labelled as "4G networks".

Benioff added that the increase in competition would be healthy. "We need more competition, we don't need less," he said.

Meanwhile he took a swipe at rival Oracle, suggesting that the company does not know what its strategy is.

"[Oracle] continues to resist multi-tenancy and shared systems, they are kind of leaning towards it, but they are kind of not... they have done a disservice to themselves and the industry," said Benioff.

Traditional vendors, like Oracle and SAP, have steered away from the Salesforce.com model of a shared schema or multi-tenancy model in which all customers are served from one infrastructure, within which every component is shared.

In order to successfully carry out this model, Salesforce.com has to replicate its architecture in several instances in the US and separately in the UK, Europe and Asia.