Indians remember Steve Jobs

He was 56.

After been diagnosed with a type of pancreatic cancer in 2004, he had been struggling with health issues for quite some time, and was absent from Apple thrice for brief intervals in the recent past.

He had finally resigned on August 25 this year as the CEO, paving way for his long-time deputy Tim Cook to take over.

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His demise has saddened a generation of Apple users and admirers, many of whom claim that Jobs was an iconic figure, a true visionary and an inspirational leader for them and many others like them.

Kartikeya Pathak, a first year student of architecture at IIT Kharagpur feels: "Jobs was the leader of innovation in his field and an inspiration for students."

His fellow classmate Abhishek Banerjee agreed and said: "He was a great visionary. Technology is a life line for everybody today, and he was a pioneer in his field. I feel Apple products are incomparable to anything in the market today."

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A famed entrepreneur, Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 alongside with his friend Steve Wozniak. A decade later he founded NeXT computer.

Apple later bought NeXT in 1996, and from 1997 to August, 2011, Jobs reigned as the CEO of Apple.

It is then hardly surprising that most entrepreneurs talk about Jobs rather fondly. Ray Newal, co-founder and CEO of Jigsee, and an entrepreneur himself, says: "The word is that if you want to become an entrepreneur, you should be something like Jobs. He was huge inspiration for so many entrepreneurs."

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There was something about Jobs and his keynote presentations every time Apple launched a new product, and how clad in plain t-shirts and denims he held the attention of millions of users in captivity, revealed a definitive awe that existed around him and everything he did as the CEO of Apple.

People around the globe and across countries craved for new Apple launches and long queues ahead of an Apple launch were a common sight.

Ray Newal offers an explanation: "Jobs understood his customers extremely well and he wanted them to have the right user experience. One could see how passionate he was by the extent to which he delved into the details of each product"

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"A lot of vested interests generally influence a business, but Steve Jobs was able to detach all such extrinsic factors and focused only on the best experience for customers."

Truly, Apple did not offer a range of products that a majority of the other companies usually end up doing.

They focused on one product, and directed all their efforts on it.

Chief Editor at Cyber Media and a technology expert Prasanto K Roy says: "I have often felt that Apple is the most courageous organisation simply because they never came up with variants of a particular product, they stood focused on one and gave it all that they had.

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In his years as the CEO of Apple, Jobs had almost become synonymous with Apple, and millions of people would find it hard to accept one separate from another. Even though his demise is extremely sad, it is not unexpected.

And now the question how it will impact Apple in the long run is grappling industry experts.

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"I think it a question no one knows," says Neuual. "Jobs had put a lot of effort in putting his DNA in the company and Apple itself is very aware of that. I don't know how successful they will be in replicating his philosophies long after he is gone."

Prasanto Roy agreed and said: "Many of Jobs philosophies have been internalised in Apple, and they had been working for the last 1-2 years on a transitional plan.

"Now, it is very important for Apple to stick to his legacies, which means they must come up with outstanding innovation and they must keep their focus both on their products and customers."

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Many in the industry are already beginning to feel the loss of Jobs and are becoming skeptical about Apple's future without his patronage. It is ironical that Apple's new CEO Tim Cook launched a newer version of iPhone 4 on Wednesday, which wasn't appreciated very much by industry experts.

"The product launch yesterday was quite disappointing, we were expecting iPhone 5, but it merely had a few hardware add-ons," said Soham Raninga, editor, for Thinkdigit, 9dot9 media.

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"The general perception is that since Jobs is gone, Apple might also go down. Hence, it is even more important for Apple to come up innovative ideas and products."

However, only time will tell how Apple copes with the sad demise of Jobs who had single handedly taken Apple to its world-leaders position today.

It would also be interesting to witness how Apple treasures the legacy of one of the truly remarkable leaders of our times.