Why Steve Jobs Is So Important to Apple

Apple announced Monday that Steve Jobs is taking another medical leave of absence from the company, his third in the past 7 years.
Apple did not disclose what is wrong with Steve, or what his prognosis is. In Steve's note to Apple staff, however, he sounded more emotional and less certain than he did when announcing his prior leave, and this has obviously left everyone who cares about Steve and the company very concerned.

How will Apple do as a company if Steve is not able to return?
This, obviously, is a critical question, and there's no simple answer. In the short term, six months to a year, the company will likely be fine.  After that, however, it's anyone's guess.

Steve Jobs' greatest strength is his product vision, which includes a magical ability to create gadgets that people don't just want and use but love. In the midst of a tectonic collision of the media, technology, and communications industries, Steve's vision has allowed Apple to invent whole new categories of gadgets that had never existed before, including the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. These products, and others, have made Apple the most valuable tech company in the world.

Now that the products have been invented, can someone else steer the Apple ship?
Again, over the short-term, yes, without question. And if Apple's future growth comes primarily from minor updates to existing products, the answer is probably still "yes."  Apple is a massive, global company with tens of thousands of talented employees, and they will likely keep making great iPhones and iPads with or without Steve.
But if Apple's future involves whole new categories of products -- as it very well might --Apple without Steve could be much less of a company than it is today. 

The collision of TV and computing, for example, is leading dozens of companies to jump into the fray, and this particular battle has not yet been won.  Apple's own product in this war -- Apple TV -- is still a work in progress, and it's not clear how the product will evolve.
Apple has many strong executives beneath Steve, and it may be that one of them possesses the same (or similar) product magic that Steve does, but at this point there's no way to know. And Apple's tremendous success over the past decade -- combined with the repeated failure of companies like Microsoft and Nokia -- has illustrated just how how rare Steve's talents are.

India Inc write to politicians over 'governance deficit'

A group of prominent personalities, including industrialists Azim Premji, Keshub Mahindra and Deepak Parekh, have expressed concern over a series of scams leading to "governance deficit". They asked the government to deal with burning issues like corruption urgently.

In an 'open letter' addressed to the leaders, they said: "We are alarmed at the widespread governance deficit almost in every sphere of national activity covering government, business and institutions. Widespread discretionary decision-making have been routinely subjected to extraneous influences.

Asking politicians to rise above party politics, the letter said "time is overdue for India's elected representatives to distinguish between dissent and disruption while the era of coalitions, tolerance of compromise still remains a challenge."

"Elected legislators and leaders must acknowledged and demonstrate their collective role and responsibility in restoring the sense of purpose and confidence in national institutions."

"The topmost responsibility of those at the helm of the nation's affairs must be to urgently restore the self-confidence and self-belief of Indians in themselves and in the State as well as in Indian business and public institutions which touch the lives of every Indian."

The signatories to the letter also include Jamshyd Godrej, Justice Sam Variava, Prof M Narasimham, Yezdi Malegam, Anu Aga, Dr A Vaidyanathan, Bimal Jalan, N Vaghul, Nachiket Mor, Justice B N Srikrishna and Dr Ashok Ganguly.

The letter comes against the backdrop of 2G, CWG and Adarsh scams, and also leakage of tapes involving corporate lobbyist Niira Radia's conversations with various personalities, including industrialist Ratan Tata, politicians and journalists.

Deepak Parekh had earlier echoed Tata in voicing concern over the leakage of the tapes stating such incidents were only generating negativity, which threatened to derail India’s growth story.

"In the last few months, the country has witnessed eruption of a number of egregious events. There are, at present, several loud and outraged voices, in the public domain, clamouring on these issues which have deeply hurt the nation," the letter said.

Amid all the scams, the letter further said, "The judiciary is a source of some reassurance but creation of genuinely independent and constitutionally constituted regulatory bodies, manned by persons who are judicially trained in the concerned field, would be one of the first and important steps to restore public confidence."

Terming corruption as "possibly, the biggest issue corroding the fabric of our nation" it said "this malaise needs to be tackled with a sense of urgency, determination and on a war footing".

"Dealing determinedly with governance and aggressively against corruption, while openly debating these issues by elected legislators is the only means left to reassure our citizens," it said.

Amongst several urgent steps needed, this is possibly the most critical one that the nation can immediately initiate in order to reassure its citizens that corruption will be most severely dealt with, both at the branch and at the root level, the letter added.

The letter further said the benefits of growth are not reaching the poor and marginalised sections adequately due to impediments to economic development.

"This is because of some critical issues like environmental concerns and differences in perspectives between central and state governments," it said.

How to become a follower of a blog? What is Following? Do you have a favorite blog and want to let the author and readers know that you are a fan? We

What is Following?

Do you have a favorite blog and want to let the author and readers know that you are a fan? Well now you can do that and more with the Blogger Following feature! You can even keep track of the blogs you follow via your Reading List on the Blogger dashboard.

How do I become a Follower of a blog?

There are several ways to become a follower of a blog. One of the easiest ways is to visit a blog that has added the Following widget and click on the "Follow" button under the "Followers" widget:

You'll then see a popup window with the options to either follow publicly or privately:

Select how you'd like to follow the blog, then click the "Follow this blog" button. It is that simple, you are now a follower of the blog! If you elected to follow the blog publicly, your profile picture will be displayed on the blog with a link to your Blogger profile (Note: The widget may not show all followers of the blog. If this is the case all followers will be linked from the widget). When you become a follower of a blog, the blog will also be added to your Reading List on your Blogger dashboard and this site will also show on your FriendConnect profile for all the sites you've joined using Friend Connect. Additionally, you can become a follower of any blog or URL (even if the blog doesn't have the Followers widget) by adding the blog to your Reading List on the dashboard.

FTP Blogs

If you join/follow an FTP blog from your dashboard or the Nav bar, the owner of the blog WON'T be informed that you followed the blog. However, if you join/follow normally (via the gadget) the owner WILL be informed that you followed the blog.

How to remove yourself from following a blog

The easiest way to remove yourself from following a blog is to visit the blog, and click "Settings" under the Following widget on the blog.

You will then see a pop-up window with your profile settings. Click the "Stop following this site" link and you will be removed from following the blog. If the blog doesn't have a Followers widget, you can still stop following the blog. To do so, go to the "Blogs I'm Following" tab under your Reading List on your dashboard.

Then click the blue "Manage" button. You will then see a list of all the blogs that you are following. To stop following a blog, click the "stop following" link next to the blog you want to stop following.

Lastly, following a blog will create a subscription to the blog in your Google Reader account.

What does Blocking a follower do?

When you Block a follower of your blog, the user will no longer appear in the Followers Gadget on your blog and will not see your blog in their Blogger Reading List. However, since your blog is public, the user can still use the other feed readers to subscribe to your blog, read your posts, and comment.

How to grow your audience with Following

The Followers widget is a great tool to help you grow your blog's audience. Readers often visit a blog and enjoy it but fail to return. With the followers widget you can get all readers to return and become a fan. We highly recommend that you write a post about your followers widget and encourage all readers to become a follower. Additionally you should put your followers widget at the top of your sidebar so more readers will notice it. Many readers ignore sidebar items so by writing a post about your followers widget and moving the widget to the top of your sidebar, you will inevitably grow your audience.

Welcome friends

Hello,

I wish to use this blog to share information with my dear ones and friends.

Raman