Jobs steps down,Apple gets a new cook

Jobs,56,has been on medical leave since January,his third such absence. He underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004,and received a liver transplant in 2009. But as recently as a few weeks ago,Jobs was negotiating business issues with another Silicon Valley executive.

Jobs will become chairman,a position that did not exist before. Apple named Tim Cook,its chief operating officer,to succeed Jobs as chief executive.

Rarely has a major company and industry been so dominated by a single individual,and so successful. His influence has gone far beyond the iconic personal computers that were Apple’s principal product for its first 20 years. In the last decade,Apple has redefined the music business through the iPod,the cellphone business through the iPhone and the entertainment and media world through the iPad. Again and again,Jobs has gambled that he knew what the customer would want,and again and again he has been right.

“The big thing about Steve Jobs is not his genius or his charisma but his extraordinary risk-taking,” said Alan Deutschman,who wrote a biography of Jobs. “Apple has been so innovative because Jobs takes major risks,which is rare in corporate America. He doesn’t market-test anything. It’s all his own judgement and perfectionism and gut.”

Cook,an expert in logistics,has been instrumental in locking up contracts in advance for critical parts in the company’s devices.

It has had the effect of securing favourable prices,keeping Apple’s profit margins high. But it also has prevented rival companies from producing competing products at significantly lower prices.

Analysts and experts said new Apple products were in the pipeline for the next few years,but the company’s success beyond that was already being debated.

Tim Bajarin,president of the technology research firm Creative Strategies,said the news about Jobs was “a shock because it’s abrupt.” But Bajarin said that “while there’s definitely concern for Steve as a person,” he had little concern for the company.

“You could make the case that Steve has injected so much of his DNA into Apple that Apple will continue,” said Guy Kawasaki,who was an Apple executive in the late 1980s.

“Or you can make the case that without Steve,Apple will flounder. But you cannot make the case that Apple without Steve Jobs will be better. Hard to conceive of that.”