In Appreciation of Steve Jobs
What should have been the week’s biggest news for business techies -- Apple’s highly anticipated launch of the latest iPhone -- has now been overshadowed by the passing of the company’s storied co-founder.
Whether the iPhone 4S is a big deal or a big disappointment now seems like a very small thing. The loss of Steve Jobs is a huge blow to technology and business innovation around the world. Even after his passing, though, we’ll all continue feel the effects of his work for many decades – and that includes small businesses.
Jobs, perhaps the ultimate entrepreneur, started Apple with Steve Wozniak in a Silicon Valley garage in 1976 and built it into the most valuable company on the planet. But more than the company he built, left, and eventually returned to save and reinvigorate -– it was the products and services he created that changed the world.
The Apple II and then the Macintosh helped make computers a part of life and business for individuals and small businesses, not just giant corporations. The iPod and iTunes remade the music business. And the iPhone finally fulfilled the promise of how valuable and important a smartphone could really be.
While many businesses initially banned iPhones because they weren't part of the official infrastructure, they were so powerful, so darn useful, that they eventually forced their way into the business world. And then the innovative AppStore gave thousands of entrepreneurs a marketplace for their apps, creating whole new kinds of businesses and business models.
Similarly, the iPad made real the promise of tablet computing, and is now worming its way into businesses large and small. (At the Oracle Openworld conference this week, it seemed every vendor was using iPads as prizes.) Finally, don’t forget Jobs’ work at Pixar, which pretty much rescued animation and made it relevant again.
Jobs was a giant figure: dominating a company, an industry, and even a new techie culture. He will be missed, but you can conjure his spirit every time you use one of the elegant, supremely useful devices he helped create. Perhaps just as important, you can see his influence even in competitors’ products that turned out to be a bit better, a bit easier to use, a bit more delightful than they might otherwise have been.
Not a bad legacy.
