Thanks Steve, RIP

editorial

You may have never met Steve Jobs, but it’s a pretty sure guess that in some way he has touched your life and made it better.

In fact, for most of us, Steve brought us closer together with family, friends, businesses and the world.

You might be saying, “Not me!  I don’t know this guy”.

So let me ask you this;

Have you seen the movie Toy Story? Have you ever played the video game Breakout at Atari, or used an Apple or Macintosh computer?

Have you used a computer mouse?   Have you used the internet or logged onto iTunes?

Is an iPod, iPhone, or iPad now an indespensable part of your daily wardrobe?

If you can answer “yes’ to any of the above, then Steve Jobs is no stranger to you.

Steve’s influence on the development of electronic technology has been nothing but phenominal.  His brilliance will forever be imprinted on the computer, film, music and mobile phone industries of which we all benefit from every day, and will continue to benefit from far into our futures.

Steve Jobs was the co-founder of Apple Inc.  He passed away last Wednesday from pancreatic cancer, and was just 56 years old.

If you Google Steve you’ll find he was an American computer entrepreneur and inventor.; co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc.  He served as a member of the board of directors of  The Walt Disney Company, and produced  the block buster first computer animated film Toy Story.

Steve was instrumental in the design, development, and marketing of one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. He  was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC’s mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Macintosh.

After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Steve resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. Apple’s subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought him back to the company he had co-founded, where he then served as its CEO from 1997 until August 2011.

In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios.  There he remained CEO and majority shareholder at 50.1 percent until its acquisition by The Walt Disney Company in 2006.Consequently Jobs became Disney’s largest individual shareholder and a member of Disney’s Board of Directors.  On August 24, of this year, Jobs announced his resignation from his role as Apple’s CEO.

Steve was a man of vision, who embraced his dreams and created an incredible reality from them.  He brought a new technological era to this world, and he will be long remembered.

Rest in peace Steve.  Had you not been taken by cancer, where would you have taken us?

 

Barriere Star Journal