Interop pays tribute to Steve Jobs

NEW YORK — This morning’s Interop keynote began with a tribute to Apple’s Steve Jobs, who passed away last night after battling cancer.

John Lennon’s “Imagine” played over the speakers as a black-and-white photo of Jobs appeared on the screen. Interop General Manager Lenny Heymann then spoke about Jobs, saying, “You’d be hard-pressed to find one person who had as much influence on so many people as anyone in our history, really.”

Heymann also praised Jobs’ work on developing consumer-friendly PCs, smartphones and tablets.

“Each of these platforms have his mark on them, which is amazing to me,” he said.

In addition, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels discussed Jobs’ legacy at the start of his keynote speech.

“His relentless focus on the customer … that is something that we should all aspire to,” he said.

Photo (cc) by David Geller and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.