By Lilia Guan

Technology vendor, Apple confirmed the death of its chairman, Steve Jobs on 5 October.

Mr Jobs along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula co-founded the technology vendor in the 1970s.

The company’s iPhone and iPad line are becoming increasingly used by employees within government agencies, including schools.

Ovum research director IT - Asia/Pacific - Dr Steve Hodgkinson told Government News, he doesn’t see this sad development impacting on government and enterprise contracts in any way in the near term.

He said Apple has a stable and mature suite of core products and a loyal following among users.

According to Dr Hodgkinson the core iPhone, iPad and iMac products remain just as attractive as they were before, and will continue to be so for the next several versions of their evolution as long as no major technical blunders are made.

“The ‘bow wave’ of preference for Apple devices in an enterprise and government context will likely continue to sustain its momentum unless there is a sudden change in Apple’s strategic direction – which is unlikely,” he said.

“We really need to look beyond the instantaneous consumer market hype when we think about Apple from the perspective of government and enterprise adoption, which tends to lag consumer adoption decisions by a year or so and be less driven by the ‘latest shiny new thing’.”

He believed that if any government contracts where to change, it would “take a year or two” for any real alterations to become apparent in terms of the development and launch of the next wave of Apple products.

“Incremental improvement will carry the day for a year,” Dr Hodgkinson said.

“So the ‘big test’ for Apple’s new leadership in terms of product development will be mid to late 2012 and this may start to have a bearing on government and enterprise enthusiasms for Apple products in 2013 and beyond.”

According to Dr Hodgkinson, Steve Jobs was an “iconic innovator” and the source of much of Apple’s creative energy and design inspiration. 

“I think Apple has established itself as a broadly based technology vendor and its legacy will endure beyond the passing of its founder,” he said.

“Apple is a very large company – with many talented and capable executives and with global operational capabilities which will, of course, continue seamlessly.”