Apple said his "brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”
Marc Andreessen, the creator of Mosaic, the first web browser client, and founder of Netscape Communications, arguably summed up Steve Job's contribution to the IT industry by saying he regularly beamed products from 10 to 20 years in the future: “He was the most amazing product visionary our industry had or will ever have.”
Steve Gold, Infosecurity's technical editor, said that, although most people associate Jobs with Apple, he did some of his most innovative work in the 1980s when he was ousted from the then Apple Computer and founded a new computing firm – NeXT Computer – in 1985.
“A year later he bought Graphics Group from George Lucas, the Star Wars director, renaming the firm Pixar and turning the animation firm into a massive success. It was about this time I became aware that my old friend and mentor Guy Kewney was regularly chatting to Steve Jobs late into the evening and was reviewing one of the first NeXT computers for his column in Personal Computer World,” recalls Steve.
“The one thing I do remember about the NeXT computer – which was eventually released in 1988 – was the NeXTstep operating system, which was quite revolutionary in being object-oriented and an amazing programming environment. The operating system laid the foundations for the WebObjects platform which appeared in 1996,” he said.
“WebObjects was a Java-based dynamic web server environment and allow companies to really get their teeth into the creation of what we now call web sites. It's release in 1996 coincided with Apple buying into NeXT and - as part of the buy-in - hired Steve Jobs as a consultant a year later. After this, he quickly became interim CEO, and the rest, as they say, is history,” he added.
Infosecurity notes that, at his address at Stanford University in 2005 – just after he was treated for his first bout of cancer - Jobs said:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Commenting on Steve Jobs' passing, Peter Wood, a veteran of the IT industry since the 1960s, CEO of First Base Technologies, a pen testing specialist – and a member of the ISACA Security Advisory Group – said he has been a keen user of Apple's products for many years.
“Steve Jobs had the unique ability to produce technology that not only looks great, but also works reliably and is really simple to use. From the Mac to the iPod to the iPhone, he revolutionised so many aspects of our modern lives, it's hard to overestimate his influence and impact”, he said.
“RIP Steve.”