Jobs is arguably the most influential computer-industry executive alive today. While he certainly shares the top shelf with the likes of Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Google’s Larry Page, IBM’s Sam Palmisano and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, for years Jobs has been in a class all by himself.

No modern tech titan has been so intimately involved with every aspect of the business. When you look at the patents, the design decisions, the marketing concepts and the purity of execution, Jobs defined what it means to be a hands-on manager with vision.

On Wednesday, Aug. 24, Jobs announced his resignation as CEO of Apple. You’ve undoubtedly read countless stories in the general media, analysis by pundits, and tweets by your friends. At this point, don’t read too much into anyone’s prognostications; we’re all extrapolating from very little data.

For example, we don’t know how many of Apple’s recent decisions were inspired by Jobs, and how many came from Tim Cook. The newly promoted CEO had held down the fort and ran day-to-day operations during Jobs’ illness.

On the short term, Apple has many Jobs-blessed products and plans in the pipeline. But what happens when that pipeline runs dry – and when the industry shifts?

Bigger changes must come soon to Apple’s product and service mix. How much will those changes affect the company’s trendsetting sense of design, ability to create entire new technology sectors, its willingness to go it alone, its minimalistic marketing, its one-sided relationship with partners, its arrogant disdain of the media, its rampant paranoia and secrecy? Nobody knows.

Take design, the area that showcases Steve Jobs’ personal leadership and vision. When it comes to new products (beyond those already in the pipeline), Apple’s designers can either try to emulate the past by designing around a hypothetical WWJD (What Would Jobs Do?) style, or follow the instincts of a new chief designer – even if that means going in a new aesthetic direction.

Let’s hope for the latter: If Apple goes into a WWJD navel-searching spiral, that would be a disaster. You can’t invent the future by copying the past. For the sake of Apple and its customers, Cook must demonstrate strong leadership and truly make the company his own.

Z Trek Copyright (c) Alan Zeichick

The IBM Personal Computer was introduced on August 12, 1981. The IBM Selectric typewriter debuted July 31, 1961. What a world of difference between the two devices – but both made a tremendous mark on global business and on today’s society.

My introduction to the IBM Selectric came in the 1970s. Through high school and then into college, I earned good money typing term papers, theses and dissertations. A good typist could earn serious money, especially if you were both fast and accurate – and, without adopting any false modesty, I was both. At first, I used a Smith-Corona cartridge typewriter, but in college I had easy access to lots of Selectric typewriters.

The Selectric II was heavenly. I could type like the wind on that beautiful, perfect, silky keyboard. Because you could change the golf-ball-shaped head, I could offer grad students and professors a couple of different typefaces – and even insert italics instead of merely underlining for emphasis. (I charged extra for pages with italics.)

I still own that Smith-Corona typewriter, and occasionally fire it up to frighten editorial interns. I never did purchase a Selectric typewriter, though. They were far too expensive, and worse, they earned a reputation for frequent breakdowns that required costly service contracts or ruinous repair bills.

The Selectric typewriter, with its type ball and lack of moving carriage, took up very little space on an office desk, and for many businesses, was a wise investment for turbocharging secretaries and typing pools. The mag tape version of the Selectric – which I never used – was a stepping-stone to the world of dedicated word processing machines. IBM made word processing machines, but that market was dominated by Wang.

It was the ridiculously high cost of dedicated word processing machines that led to early adoption of the IBM Personal Computer in many companies. A floppy-based IBM PC and printer and word processing software (such as MultiMate) was much less expensive than a Wang machine.

When the IBM PC came out in 1981, I was working as a programmer for System/370-series mainframes. Some IBM sales guys (black suits, white shirts) came out and demonstrated the IBM PC to a rapt audience. They left one with us to evaluate – this was the original model with the 4.77MHz processor, a floppy drive and a green text-only monitor. We had no idea what to do with it. Eventually, the IBMers took it away. Certainly we didn’t miss it.

Mainframe programmers didn’t want the IBM PC, but secretaries and other office workers did. The IBM PC found a place (especially when the IBM PC/XT appeared in 1983 with its built-in hard drive) doing simple office tasks – like word processing, a true business-critical application. (Secretaries weren’t happy with the IBM PC, since its early word-processing software wasn’t anywhere near as a versatile and reliable as the Wang machines machines. But the hardware and software improved rapidly, and the cost savings was huge.)

Except in the sciences and in special applications, the IBM PC was often considered a piece of office equipment, not computing equipment. A company’s IT staff rarely got involved with these stand-alone appliances, any more than they would have maintained Selectric typewriters or Wang word-processing machines.

When did IT become involved? For most organizations, the tipping point arrived by the mid-to-late 1980s, when administrators began supporting custom software, terminal access and local-area networking. The drivers for LANs, of course, was to provide shared access to expensive laser printers and file servers. Distasteful though it was to many glass-house professionals, it was clear that the IBM PCs were computers, not office equipment.

Thanks to innovations like Lotus 1-2-3 macros, Novell NetWare and the need to build and support business-enhancing software written in BASIC, Turbo Pascal and dBase II, the IBM PC turned into a true enterprise IT resource instead of a glorified typewriter. The Selectric was dead. Long live the IBM PC.

Z Trek Copyright (c) Alan Zeichick