If Apple=Steve Jobs then what is Apple without Steve?

 So you might have all heard the news. Apple CEO Steve Jobs who has been fighting a battle with pancreatic cancer for several years now took a long leave of absence on medical grounds in January 2011. Yesterday there were reports that Steve's condition has deteriorated and he has only 6 weeks to live! Humanitarian grounds aside, let us see what this might mean for Apple as a company.

I believe that Apple's growth over the last few years has been largely driven by Steve's vision and ideology. (It is a different matter that I hate his philosophy and business practices, but we're not getting personal here!) In fact, the current growth phase for Apple started in 2004-2005 with the success of iPods, iPhones and more recently the iPad. Steve Jobs should get all credit for this – he single handedly steered the company from being just a manufacturer of computer hardware and software to a manufacturer of evolving media consumption devices. Heck, touch screen technology wouldnt be what it is today if it hadnt been for the iPhone! So here's a look at the company's performance in the stock market.

Now the question on every one's minds would be “what next after Steve?”. Steve is still the CEO and day to day operations at Apple are being taken care of by Tim Cook. The biggest challenge for Apple will be to continue on the growth path without Steve Jobs at the helm providing direction and purpose to the company. The “passing of the baton” can be a huge challenge for even the most successful of companies. To illustrate this, let us take a look at another major technology company – Microsoft. Just like Apple, Microsoft has a love-hate relationship with most users and just like Apple, they were one of the leading innovators in technology. (notice how I said 'were') Microsoft was truly blazing its way to glory under its founder CEO Bill Gates. Their growth phase in the stock market lasted till the year 2000 when Bill stepped down as CEO and handed over charge to Steve Ballmer. (Another Steve!???!) One look at the graph below will tell you what happened after that.

Microsoft's stock price has remained almost flat, if not fallen in the last 10 years! Their last big success was Windows XP which was followed by a series of duds. Even the recent 'success' of Windows 7 has not really improved their performance on the stock market. The problem here was that the drive and zest for innovation that one CEO brought to the company was gone when the next guy took over. So a great company entered a phase of mediocrity. Will Apple suffer the same fate with Steve Jobs' passing? I guess we'll have to wait and see!