Witnessing the End of an Internet Era

Steve Jobs departure for health reasons comes some seven months after his rival Bill Gates retired from Microsoft.

The two culture-changing men were seen as leaders of rival camps:- personal computer lovers versus the cult of Macintosh computers.

The dueling technologies had faces at which people aimed praise of scorn. Gates was the PC. Jobs is the Macintosh.

According to historian Peter Friess, who is the president of The Tech Museum of Innovation in the Silicon Valley, “Jobs and Gates, both born in 1955, grew up during the socially rebellious 1960s and bear its mark”.

Gates and Jobs both dropped out of college to pursue dreams of building computers for people. While the first PCs and "Macs" were sold by Gates and Jobs before there was a Web to surf, the men led their respective companies to glory in the Internet Age.

In a rare joint appearance, Jobs and Gates reminisced on stage at an All Things Digital conference in California two years ago. The men joked that their rivalry was misunderstood.

Early this week, Jerry Yang, the very public face of Internet pioneer Yahoo Inc., was replaced as chief executive by Carol Bartz.

What could be the meaning of the retirement or departure of these technology icons? Are we witnessing the end of an Internet era??

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