Steve Jobs is dead. Long live Steve Jobs.

If I want to tell you there's a spot on your shirt, I'm not going to do it linguistically: "There's a spot on your shirt 14 centimeters down from the collar and three centimeters to the left of your button." If you have a spot––"There!" [He points]––I'll point to it. Pointing is a metaphor we all know. We've done a lot of studies and tests on that, and it's much faster to do all kinds of functions, such as cutting and pasting, with a mouse, so it's not only easier to use but more efficient.

Above is Steve Jobs defending the mouse.  Yep, there was a time when the computer mouse required a defense.

Computers will be essential in most homes….The most compelling reason for most people to buy a competitor [sic] for the home will be to link it to a nationwide communications network. We're just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people––as remarkable as the telephone.

At the time it was very rare to see a computer in someone's home.  The market for computers in homes was still "conceptual".

When was Mr. Jobs asked to defend the mouse and make visionary statements the home computer?  Was it 1967?  1977?

Nope.

It was only 24 years ago, in 1987, that Steve Jobs made the above statements.

Ten years later in 1997, computers (with mice) were common in homes and many were connected to the internet.  Today, many computers have moved beyond the mouse, but most of us have several computers in our home.  

These days the "debate" has moved to cloud computing.  We are frequently asked if the benefits of cloud computing are real or just hype.  "We have studies that show you will save over 30% in IT cost, that it will pay for itself while making your business more flexible, more efficient, and make your systems and data more secure," we say.

Our new answer will be, "In 1987 Steve Jobs was asked to defend the computer mouse."

Steve Jobs either created the device you are using to read this post, or he strongly influenced it.  He died today, and he will be missed.  You should take 10 minutes to read the entire 1987 Steve Jobs interview.