Larry Ellison at Steve Jobs' memorial

The New York Times reported on Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's remarks last Sunday night at Stanford University's invitation-only memorial in that campus' Memorial Church for the late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.

[The] longtime friend of Mr. Jobs, said their relationship consisted of walks in the foothills of Silicon Valley near their homes, the person at the service said. Mr. Ellison also offered a moment of levity when describing his Hawaiian vacations with Mr. Jobs. He said the trips always included four people: Mr. Jobs, his wife, Lauren Powell Jobs, Mr. Ellison and whichever woman Mr. Ellison — who has been married and divorced several times — was dating at the time.

In addition to Jobs' wife and children, Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president for industrial design, attended, as well as former Apple executives Jonathan Rubinstein, Avie Tevanian, Tony Faddell and Andy Hertzfeld. Tim Cook, Scott Forstall and Bud Tribble were among the current Apple executives present. Venture capitalists John Doerr and Marc Andreessen, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Salesforce.com’s chief executive, Marc Benioff also were among the several hundred invited guests.

Also in attendance were Bill Clinton, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Michael Del, Bono, Joan Baez, Jobs' Pixar colleague John Lasseter and Stephen Fry, who said via twitter: "I don’t know that there was ever a more beautiful memorial service. Everyone who spoke did so with such passion and love and simplicity.”

Death of Steve Jobs: Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Google cofounders react

Steve Jobs in 1981

World-class visionary, salesman nonpareil, China job creator and frequently cruel jerk Steve Jobs, who drank a bottle of ant poison as a child, has died after a long battle with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. His powers of persuasion gave rise to the phrase "the Steve Jobs reality distortion field." Working for him was described by one programmer was described as being on a "hero-shithead roller coaster." Jobs changed computing by licensing, with Apple stock, software and hardware innovations like the mouse and a touchy-feely graphic user interface pioneered by Xerox's PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) which used the technology in its Star workstations but couldn't market its way out of a paper bag. At least Apple paid for what Microsoft simply appropriated.
     Jobs' instincts and insight were as close to prophetic as any 20th Century CEO could hope for. Example: even as "desktop publishing" was supplanting traditional typesetting in the 1980s, Jobs was telling reporters that the phrase was merely transitory. He was right, of course; it was merely a temporary label ushering in a new paradigm.

Here is what Bill Gates had to say about the passing of Apple's cofounder:

Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.

     The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.

     For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.

Other reactions, from Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg and the cofounders of Google are here.

Correction: Larry Ellison has not yet made a statement about the passing of Jobs at the above link or anywhere else. Last summer, MacWorld excerpted part of a San Jose Mercury News interview with Ellison, who talked about Jobs, even then gravely ill:

We almost decided to wear T-shirts: "The Mercurial Steve Jobs" and "The Arrogant Larry Ellison."

     Steve Jobs is my best friend, and I love him dearly, and he is one of the most remarkable people on this planet. You watch him create Apple, then in one of the worst human-resources mistakes in the history of Silicon Valley — the only thing worse was when the French fired Napoleon — they fire Steve Jobs and Apple almost completely disintegrates. Then he comes back and he saves a company that was on life support.

     I never see this quoted about Steve, but they once asked Andy Grove who he most admired in the PC industry, and he said, "One guy: Steve Jobs. He invented the PC industry."

     You know, we live in a very egalitarian world. We don't like heroes. And Steve is one of these heroic guys whose accomplishments are of such epic proportions, and it gnaws away at our egalitarian sense of the world.

The most poignant reaction was from Jobs' business partner and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, who, after Jobs stiffed some key Apple employees in its IPO, gave them 1/3 of his own stock.

He said he was "overwhelmed and could not get in touch with his emotions". His only words: "People sometimes have goals in life. Steve Jobs exceeded every goal he ever set for himself."

The most amusing reaction was from Rupert Murdoch who preposterously insinuated that he had a heart which "goes out to [Jobs'] family."

The best look back at Steve Jobs' life that AKSARBENT has seen is over at gizmodo.com.

Exclusive: Gay Marriage NOT Their Real Agenda
SCARY HOMOSEXUAL PLOT TO STRAIN
WORLD SUPPLY OF 8-GIGABIT FLASH
MEMORY CHIPS BY CORNERING
100 MILLION OF THEM!

Photo: (Cook, Jobs) Text: Eric Zeman

File this under: Whoa. According to DigiTimes, Apple has placed orders for up to 100 million 8GB NAND flash memory chips. Gee, what would Apple want to do with that many chips?
One hundred million 8GB chips is a lot of memory. The order is so large, says DigiTimes, that it is causing tight supply in the market. It reports, "Contract prices for MLC NAND flash chips have increased by up to 16% for the first half of April, as a result of shipment adjustments by chip suppliers."
Most of the chips for Apple will come from Samsung, which is the world's largest supplier of NAND flash. It appears that Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Sony (NYSE: SNE) are also beefing up their supplies of flash memory, though the DigiTimes doesn't have figures.
This and other reports suggest that Apple is ramping up production of the next-generation iPhone. Lest you think that any new device would be limited to just 8GB (which seems a skimpy amount), keep in mind, Apple may use multiple chips inside one device. With 100 million chips on hand, Apple will be able to supply millions of iPhones and iPods with all sorts of different memory configurations, including 8GB, 16GB, 24GB, 32GB and so on.
We also know that Apple has ordered 3.2- and 5.0-megapixel camera modules, and that iPhone OS 3.0 (which is great, by the way) will support video capture.
Tie everything together, and Apple just might have something really interesting to announce at WWDC in June.

IS APPLE COO TIM COOK GAY?

[Rumormonger]
Tim Cook, Steve Jobs's second-in-command, may be up for the top job at Apple should anything happen to the company's iconic founder. Indeed, he's already subbed in once when Jobs was recuperating from surgery to treat pancreatic cancer. But who is this guy? Even Fortune's in-depth profile gives few clues: Cook, 48, is a Southerner who's "intensely private," a "fitness nut," and a "lifelong bachelor" who rents a house in Palo Alto. Outside interests? "When he isn't working he tends to be in the gym, on a hiking trail, or riding his bike." Come on. What is this — a Fortune profile, or a men-seeking-men personals ad in Craigslist?
     Gina Gloski, a classmate of Cook's at Auburn University, told Fortune, "He just never seemed that interested in other people. I'm a hugger and a kisser, but I'd never feel comfortable giving Tim a hug or a kiss." A Republican when he worked for IBM, he donated money to Barack Obama's campaign.
We dislike stereotypes as much as the next guy. But an intensely private bachelor in his 40s, with a Southern background? We'd be remiss in our duties as a gossip if we didn't wonder if Cook was gay.
Not that there's anything wrong with that: Apple recently donated $100,000 to the unsuccessful effort to defeat Proposition 8, California's ban on gay marriage.
Source: valleywag.com