History will remember Steve Jobs as the man who wore black and blue, and offered the same coat of paint to his rivals in competition. If in doubt just ask Nokia, Google or Microsoft who have all tried to stop the Apple juggernaut.

Everyone has at some stage felt the genius of Steve Jobs, the iconic technology leader who stepped down as Apple Inc CEO last week. Apple?s slew of products?most notably the iPad and iPhone?have taken the Cupertino firm to an altogether rarefied technological space. His rivals in the US and Far East have not had many answers to most of the aces up his sleeve.

But sometimes amidst all this technology talk people forget how good a speaker and motivator Steve Jobs was. Some of his quotes have been pure magic. Sample this for instance??Your time is limited, so don?t waste it in living someone else?s life. Don?t be trapped by dogma?which is living with the results of other people?s thinking. Don?t let the noise of others? opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary,? says the man with a personal fortune of $8.3 billion.

It is this ability to inspire people that has helped Apple rediscover itself after being written off in the late ?80s and early ?90s. History has always backed anyone who dared to dream and chased that down with single minded determination. Way back in 1984 during the release of the iconic Macintosh, he said, ?We?re gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make ?me too? products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it?s always the next dream.?

He knew that his time was limited, and realised the importance of getting things done fast. ?Almost everything?all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure?these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.? Clearly he knew how to think beyond technology. In response to Bill Gates? success, this is what he had to say in 1993, ?Well, you know, my goal is not to be the richest man in the cemetery!?

Jobs was the last man to hang back and watch the scenery. ?You can?t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they?ll want something new,? is his answer to those who wait for things to happen.

For a man of such speed, alacrity and vision, he did not need anyone to teach him the importance of innovation. ?A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets,? said Jobs, who never ever allowed himself to be bogged down by ill health.

?Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren?t used to an environment where excellence is expected,? he said to those who wanted to revel in mediocrity. ?Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations,? he told those who were afraid to make errors.

And he was not even worried about getting fired in the process. ?I didn?t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life,? he said after being fired from Apple in 1984.

And here?s my personal favourite. ?Here?s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes?the ones who see things differently?they?re not fond of rules?You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can?t do is ignore them because they change things?they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.?

The post-PC world is here

Being in the PC business is not fashionable anymore?especially if that?s your main business stream. IBM had moved on from the space a few years ago, and now HP has said that it wants to explore alternatives for its computer division. It is also planning to stop making phones and tablets. For anyone who has tracked HP?s fortunes, these developments should come across as a shame. HP?s new announcements declare very loudly that the era of the PC is nearly done and that?s something Apple boss Steve Jobs had predicted a while back. While everyone was expecting that to happen at some point, the reality is right here and gnawing at the feet.

It is easy to wonder whether HP has panicked far too son, but a closer examination of the truth could reveal that may not be case here. With consumers shifting to tablets and smart phones in a big way, the industry has seen a drop in laptop and desktop sales. It?s quite unbelievable to think about HP without its trademark PCs, but that?s about to become a reality. The iPad, along with other tablets, have made it difficult for PC makers to breathe easy. HP?s offer to buy UK software group Autonomy shows how it wants to think now. It surely wants to go the software way and enjoy the higher margins, rather than keep dabbling in the highly competitive, low margin PC play. The fact that they paid $10 billion for it, shows how desperate HP has been.

HP?s PC division still enjoys considerable profits but long term visibility on the business is quite unpredictable. It has conceded that the future belonged to tablets and there was no point in hanging around for long. HP has slipped to the third slot in PC sales in India, a year after it lost the top position to Dell. Acer is the No.2 PC player. India?s PC sales, which includes mobile PCs or notebooks and netbooks stood at 2.5 million units for the second quarter ending June, the slowest growth in two years. The writing was on the wall and HP read it well.