Apple loses its icon
By By Nithin Rao | 07 Oct 2011
"Steve Jobs has been one of the greatest icons of the modern era. Apple's products, under his leadership, have had a profound impact on mankind, unequaled by any other company in the information and technology space. The world has lost a great business leader and a great visionary." --- Ratan Tata
-------------------------------------------------------------
"Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011". That simple link on the homepage of Google on Thursday – taking visitors directly to the Apple.com web site – was one of the most gracious tributes to the iconic inventor, designer, entrepreneur, or what-you-will, by one of his bitterest rivals.
The day after Steve Jobs died, succumbing to a rare type of pancreatic cancer, the virtual world was buzzing with tributes to the legendary founder of Apple. On Google's news site, there were more than 32,000 references – spread over more than 60 pages – to Jobs, more than that for any other individual on earth.
Twitter had millions of messages with fans conveying their grief. In fact, the microblogging site was clogged with messages, forcing Twitter to flash its 'FailWhale' image, an error message indicating too many tweets were happening. ''You know that somebody important has died when you keep getting the FailWhale,'' tweeted a user. ''It's the new measure of somebody's influence.''
One of the most re-tweeted messages was: ''Three apples have changed the world. One seduced Eve, second awakened Newton, the third one was in the hands of Jobs."
Indeed, there can be no doubt as to the influence that Jobs exercised over an entire generation since he came out with his first device, the Apple-1, in 1976. The man who remade three industries, transforming the way we create, consume and communicate with each other, was no hot-shot executive, armed with engineering, finance or management degrees.
