The legendary Steve Jobs and the ‘Apple' company he created had very little impact on India when compared to Bill Gates and his Microsoft.
This was, according to speakers at a panel discussion on the legacy of Mr. Jobs who died recently, because of two factors: one, Mr. Jobs was disappointed with India and the Indian condition. As a young man, Mr. Jobs who would later acquire more than 300 patents, had visited India seeking spiritual inspiration from Hinduism. He was disgusted with the spiritual establishment here and left as an admirer of Zen Buddhism. He had not bothered to open a single Apple Store, thousands of which dot the globe, in India, either.
The second factor was that Bill Gates and Microsoft showered their attention on India and the Indian computer users and techies were very comfortable with Microsoft products.
The panel discussion held to pay tribute to the innovator genius was organised by the Kochi chapters of National HTD Network, Indian Society for Training and Development and the National Institute of Personnel Management.
The speakers noted that Mr. Jobs' success was the product of his own genius as much as the business ecosystem and socio-cultural framework of his country. The speakers also noted that Mr. Jobs had designed his products looking at them from the end-user's perspective. He was a perfectionist who paid attention to the minute details and he was also a hard taskmaster.
