Jobs - well done

CRN's senior reporter Sam Trendall celebrates the wit and wisdom of Apple's departing CEO

It's fair to say that the channel (and the journalists who write about it) has always enjoyed a relationship with Apple that was up-and-down, at best.

And there are plenty of other reasons people (perhaps including this correspondent) find the vendor, at times, a little grating. The proprietary technology stacks, the self-consciously hip adverts, the legions of fanboys and the obligatory Stephen Fry endorsements are just a few such irritations.

But it would be deeply churlish to deny the positive impact the firm - and its charismatic leader - has had on the technology industry and, arguably, the world at large. The Apple effect, if you will.

Under Steve Jobs' canny leadership - both after his founding of the company in 1976 and since his return two decades later - the firm has taken technology further and further into the mainstream and has popularised personal computing platforms in ways no other manufacturers have.

And, there's no getting around it, Apple is cool. Thanks, in part, to the vendor's lovely-looking products and slick marketing machine, being tech-savvy is now common and desirable. In any case, the image of IT as a geeky, cliquey and arcane world has been long since been dispelled.

This widening of IT's appeal and visibility (not to mention its sales figures) can, ultimately, only be a good thing for the technology industry as a whole. There are certainly few more passionate, dedicated and influential advocates for new technology than Steve Jobs.

For that reason alone, his stewardship of Apple should be remembered in very high regard. The fact that he departs the CEO role with his company in a position of being richer than the US government can also do no harm to his reputation.

Apple currently has $76.4bn in the bank and market capitalisation of almost $350bn, which earlier this month, led to it briefly becoming the largest company in the world. Not bad for a money-making scheme set up by a couple of geeks from the Homebrew Computer Club in California.

Remaining as chairman of the board, we can only hope and assume that Steve Jobs will continue to help set the beat for one of the tech industry's biggest success stories. At any rate, his legacy is assured.

And, rightly or wrongly, I find it quite hard not to like a guy who once said his old sparring partner Bill Gates would perhaps "be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once" as a younger man. At the end of his hugely successful time at Apple's helm, we can certainly conclude it never did Steve Jobs any harm.

Sam Trendall is senior reporter at CRN