John Doerr

John Doerr is a legendary venture capitalist, having financed companies such as Google, Amazon, Netscape and many others. He wrote recently in TechCrunch on the Next Big Thing--he thinks it is the iPad and what it represents for the future of computing. Some key bullet points from him:

On Saturday (April 3) the iPad arrived. We believe it will rule the world.

I’ve touched it, held it, and caressed it. It feels gorgeous. It feels like touching the future.

It is not a big iPod. But it IS a very big deal.

Twice in the last 15 years we’ve witnessed 100,000 flowers blooming. Flowers of applications for the Web, and then for the iPhone. Both were paradigm shifts in how we interact.

Here comes the third shift: interacting fluidly on full and fast screens with vast information stored locally. And that will start a third renaissance of software.

Bill Joy says the key to more performance is lower power. Over the next decade he sees 3 times better batteries, and 10 times lower power chips. So we should be able to run, for the same price, 30 times as much application.

And as for storage, there’s no reason that can’t be 30x also. Or, about a terabyte of local, faster, solid state storage. (A terabyte is several hundred movies)

What’s important is the new ways tablet computers will be used. They won’t just be reactive, responding to commands. They’ll also be proactive.

They will be much more than personal computers. They’ll be interpersonal surfaces and services. Working seamlessly, unobtrusively, and comfortably in the spaces between us, between you and me and others.