InfoTech: Steve Jobs dies.

It is difficult to understand why anyone, such as this writer, is affected by the death of Steve Jobs. Although we never met, there was no feeling here that Jobs was a man who would actually be very nice to meet. Prowling the stage at product launches, he basically hectored a group of devotees. Even when the product wasn't very good, as in the original iPhone 4, he over-rode legitimate criticisms.

And he created a monster - a litigation-hungry, obnoxious corporation that is - for want of a better word - corporate.

He polarised the computer industry - the Macintosh (later, simply, Mac) line was special. Sure, it was costly but it did things that PC users could not do, or at least could not do easily and quickly. A university found that by networking a roomful of Apple G5 computers, they could build a supercomputer for a few hundred thousand dollars instead of tens of millions.

He re-wrote the mobile phone industry - swatting massive competitors such as Nokia and Sony-Ericsson and the iPhone juggernaut all-but wiped out the PDA industry. The iPad showed that many laptop users don't need anything more than a touch-screen.

And Apple produced product that was aesthetically superb. Its designs consistently outshone the PC industry that tried (and generally failed) to play catch up.

But all of this came at a price: to get the best out of the already expensive hardware, users had to pay for expensive software. Apple, with its "we are hippy, we are arty" exterior was developed as a self-feeding micro-market.

That came to its head with iTunes and AppStore, services of such immense control-freakery that means Apple takes a slice off both ends of every sale - and as some retailers have discovered and rebelled against - every sub-sale of every product that runs on the consumer-orientated iPhone, iPad, and so on.

And customers found that, once locked into the iDream it was a one-way highway with no exits except to jump off and lose everything.

The Teflon began to become unstuck with the iPhone 4 debacle where Jobs' high handed response was, in essence, to tell people that the transmission problems caused by bridging two parts of the antenna were their own fault for holding their phone in their left hand. Widespread media reports muttered that this was an attack on the less-than-10% of the population which is left handed, missing the point that the other 90% hold the phone in their left hand while holding a pen with their right hand.

Then Apple Inc, started much more aggressive litigation to block the entry to the market of competing smart-phones and tablets. This is not, long-time fans felt, the way a peace-and-love corporation like Apple should behave. After all, didn't its fans rise up and support it when it was under attack from The Beatles for copyright infringement over its logo? And when Microsoft tried to argue that it had exclusive rights in the concept of a mouse and a "Graphical User Interface."How wrong, then, for a company that claimed to believe in a kind of free-love-in-tech to try to block anyone who has the same ideals?

But even before that, there was the move away from the uniqueness that was Apple computer and the migration to Intel chips; the G5 was the last great true Apple. Even now, used versions, sell for far more than a new PC.

The irony of Apple's patent litigation is not lost on those who realise that the OS X operating system and its descendants - for which Apple charges a premium price - is not, at its heart, an Apple product - it is basically an Apple-ised version of Linux, an open source (and free) operating system.

So, why should we care that Steve Jobs is dead? Because he built a company that has, on some figures, more money in the bank than the USA? Because his little renegade company has, again on some figures, taken over from Microsoft as the world's most profitable computer-related company? Because he brought us the computer that did as we told it, the smart phone and the tablet (he didn't do any of those things, incidentally, but the image is more important than the reality) or that he built a brand that is, in many parts of the world, as recognisable as CocaCola and Marlboro?

No, those are not the reasons that this author is sorry at the death of the man who founded, lost, regained and drove Apple from a shed to, arguably, the world's richest company.

Jobs had something that very, very few people have: a clear vision and a strategy for implementing it. And while some of the humanity became lost in the pursuit of commercial greatness, Jobs did something no-one else has managed: he showed us that success will not come to visionaries to live in caves, hoping that, one day, someone will recognise their talents or that word of mouth is enough to sell a superior product. That was the days of the Apple I and Apple II. Being best, as the Mac and its line were, was not enough to compete nor, from time to time, to survive.

Jobs showed that they have to be out there, proving that they are different, proving that they are better, evangelising.

That's what happened to the hippy-esque Jobs. When needed, he turned into a tiger and fought bankers, backers, naysayers and competitors and, mostly, he did it not with insults and harsh words but with superior (or, at least, better looking) product and by differentiating Apple to always appear the underdog while actually winning the battle.

As his illness took hold, Jobs became fractious and short, even with the customers that had always supported Apple. But the market feared what would happen to Apple without Jobs. He worked far too long into his terminal illness not because Apple needed him, not because the customers wanted him there, not because he could not let go but because jittery markets threatened his baby every time there was a rumour he might retire.

Today, there will be thousands of accolades for Jobs, most of which will be cloyingly, saccharin sweet.

This isn't one of them.

This is a mark of respect for a man who took on giants and won.