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Today’s Monday Interview in the FT is with one of the most refreshing characters in a crowded, noisy and somewhat monotonous cloud-computing/software market. Marc Benioff, founder, chairman and chief exec of Salesforce.com has most certainly carved out a name for himself as not only being one of the most successful pioneers of today’s pay-as-you-go business IT world, but also as a chief exec who is not afraid to give the media what it wants; contentious comment, honest opinion and perhaps most importantly, his time.

So is Marc Benioff the perfect media spokesperson? He certainly fits the bill in terms of having a great background story that is of great interest to the press; one of the youngest people to be given a vice-president title at Oracle, launches Salesforce.com, a multi-billion dollar company, from his apartment, donates a proportion of his company’s revenue to charity and what’s more he’s a keen paddle boarder and yoga fan.

But it’s perhaps the time he devotes to raising his media profile that makes him a press darling. Apparently Benioff devotes his Friday afternoons to the media – making himself available for interviews and comment with many journalists having access to his direct number. The benefit this would bring to his PR  teams would be immense. Imagine knowing that a CEO you represent is ready and waiting to engage with the press every week and has devoted time to do it. The time spent negotiating PAs, Outlook calendars and other obstacles would be drastically reduced, leaving his PR team to focus on getting column inches.

This availability, coupled with his commitment to deliver messages and comment that make people sit up and take notice, make Mr Benioff an example of a great spokesperson. While his competitors will say that he dishes out over-hyped messages and likes to stir the pot with soundbites such as “I’m sorry, for those of you who didn’t make it into the cloud…we’ve moved on!”, I can’t help think that his fellow chief-execs are a little envious of his PR approach.  Would it be such a bad thing if a couple more followed suit?