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??

Carol Bartz appointed CEO of Yahoo Inc

Carol Bartz has been appointed CEO of Yahoo Inc. As CEO, Carol replaces Jerry Yang, who is one of the co-founder of Yahoo.

Yahoo's decision to bring in an outsider apparently irked its president, Susan Decker, who also was a candidate for the CEO job. Both Decker and Bartz are on Intel Corp.'s board of directors.
Bartz's track record indicates she will move quickly to build upon Yahoo's strengths while doing her best to shed the weaknesses.

Bartz spent nearly 17 years at Autodesk, which specializes in making design software for architects and engineers. She was the San Rafael-based company's CEO from 1992 until 2006, when she stepped aside to become executive chairman - a job that paid her a $500,000 salary.

While Bartz was CEO at Autodesk, the company's annual revenue increased from nearly $300 million to $1.5 billion.

Bartz had established her management chops in nine years at Sun Microsystems Inc., where she eventually became the No. 2 executive behind the server maker's then-CEO, Scott McNealy. She also has worked at Digital Equipment Corp. and 3M.

Yahoo also is far larger than Autodesk, with annual revenue of more than $7 billion and roughly 13,000 employees, nearly twice the size of Autodesk's work force.

Bartz also will have to coexist with Yang, who will play the role of "Chief, Yahoo" while remaining on the company's board. Those two also share a boardroom together as directors at Internet gear maker Cisco Systems Inc.

Bartz is known for a no-nonsense approach. Before graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1971 with a degree in computer science, Bartz was a cheerleader, homecoming queen and a cocktail waitress - a job that helped pay her college tuition.