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Apple’s Jobs to take medical leave of absence

by Scott Bicheno on 15 January 2009, 10:15

Tags: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

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Complications

Following his attempt to end speculation over his health ten days ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has now revealed that things are a bit more complicated than he's hoped, regarding his health.

As his previous statement failed to silence the media he's decided to go on sick-leave until the end of June. Chief operating officer Tim Cook will handle day-to-day stuff, but Jobs will still handle the big decisions.

Here's the full text of his email to all Apple employees:

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple's day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

Apple's shares were down 7.42 percent to to $79 in pre market trading at time of writing.

UPDATE - 10:30 15th January 2009: Unsurprisingly this latest announcement has done the exact opposite of taking Jobs out of the limelight. Here's a taste of it from CNBC:

 



HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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Time to sell any Apple shares you may own then…

:-(
3dcandy
Time to sell any Apple shares you may own then…

:-(
No, but some will.
Yup, down 11% almost already…..and at a year low!

:)
It's kinda crazy how a company can have so much value imbued in one man. But his importance to Apple can't be underestimated. Just look how far they have come in the last 10-12 years since he went back to Apple.

There may be some investors wanting to sue Apple over misleading information about Jobs' health. However, something must be said for the privacy of one's health records. I think that should take precedence over a company's share price.

In any case let's hope Jobs gets back to his former healthy self soon. We need his vision to push the IT industry forward… But perhaps with less iTunes monopolisation!
There are plenty of rumours around the net, (even some from serious sources) that he may not be coming back, this would be shame as, although I have never brought any Apple stuff, it's always good to have credible competition.

Before os x they had some really dodgy os's (these were in the non Jobs era), I was told this by some rabid apple fanbois (they're now even more convinced that they made the right choice, and Laugh at me for only usinf windows and linux), so it's not as if Apple were always perfect.