Business leaders express confidence in new CEO

What a difference 14 years makes. When Steve Jobs returned to the CEO job at Apple in 1997, the company was painted by pundits and the public as being on its deathbed. Today, as his successor Tim Cook formally takes over the most highly-valued tech company in the world, the consensus among business leaders and analysts is that the executive team Jobs assembled has the talent and vision among them to keep Apple growing and innovating for the foreseeable future.

While news of Jobs' sudden resignation was surprising in its timing, industry observers and the Apple community have been well aware for years that Jobs couldn't continue leading the company indefinitely. Serious talk of Tim Cook as a possible successor first emerged in 2008, when Jobs' shocking weight loss ignited discussion of his future. Almost exactly three years ago, Bloomberg mistakenly published an obituary for Jobs, who later joked about the incident with a famous quote from Mark Twain: "Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated."

Though pundits and commenters agree that Jobs' unique stamp on the company, personal presence and detailed participation in nearly every aspect of Apple's operations -- he is credited as primary or co-inventor on over 230 patents, the majority of which have been established during his current tenure -- will be impossible to replace, Jobs has apparently been effective at convincing shareholders and business analysts that Cook, designer Jonathan Ive and the other members of the executive bench, along with the well-established board of directors, have between them both the management talent and creative vision to continue carrying the company forward, even with only limited participation from Jobs himself.

Cook came to Apple in 1998 from Compaq, where he had been vice president for corporate materials, responsible for procuring the company's supplies and managing their inventory, skills that would serve him well when Apple hired him to do essentially the same job. Cook also spent 12 years at IBM also leading the manufacturing and distribution divisions.

Since arriving at Apple, Cook focused on streamlining the manufacturing process for the company, outsourcing most of the production with a focus on increasing margins, a key weakness at Apple during the late 90s. Cook is also on the board of directors for Nike, which has forged a strong partnership with Apple over the past few years.

His strong but quiet leadership and consistent ability to maintain Apple profitability in the face of an ever-changing array of products -- even during hard economic times -- has won Cook many fans on Wall Street.

The San Jose Mercury News quotes Richard Doherty of the Evisioneering Group as summarizing the public sentiments of most observers by saying "that magic won't go away overnight." He believes Jobs has impressed enough of his philosophy, vision and "creative DNA" on the executive team that each can work with the others to contribute to the common goal of continuing the mission of innovative, surprising and industry-changing products combined with solid fundamental business execution.

In particular, Cook -- who was earlier today promoted to CEO in accordance with Jobs' request, and who has been effectively running the company as chief operating officer for several years -- was a strong choice from Wall Street's perspective, with his well-documented reputation for being obsessed with smooth operations, inventory levels and other core "balance sheet" factors on the corporate side of the operation. He is also known to be friendly but (like Jobs) demanding, setting a high standard for his subordinates. The company has continued to perform beyond expectations, both when Jobs was present and hands-on and during the most recent medical leaves, where Jobs was less engaged in day-to-day operations.

"We all knew this was going to come some day," said Scott Rothbort of LakeView Investment Management, adding that the change at the CEO slot would not cause him to sell his shares in Apple or change his long-term outlook for the company. Fellow Apple Computer creator and friend Steve Wozniak agreed, saying "[Jobs] is doing the right thing. He is taking the best road for him and Apple."

The Huffington Post quotes Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg as saying that while Jobs' change from CEO to chairman is "the end of an era in many ways," the company itself would experience little change as Jobs has spent the last ten years building his current team -- and preparing the company for his eventual departure since at least 2004, when his life-threatening pancreatic cancer first appeared. "It's likely to be business as usual in Cupertino tomorrow," Gartenberg said. He added that consumers had responded so strongly in recent years to Apple products not because of Jobs, but because the company has done an excellent job of meeting -- and in some cases, creating -- their needs.

Forrester analyst Charles Golvin pointed out that Jobs has been known to plan far ahead -- such as when Jobs revealed that Apple had been testing Mac OS on Intel for almost a decade prior to the introduction of Intel-based Macs -- and expressed confidence that many future products and other offerings were already in the pipeline, or at least on the drawing board, before Jobs resigned. He added that Jobs is likely to continue his role in guiding Apple's overall direction for as long as his health permits, continuing to contribute on some level to the company's future.

But like many others, Golvin wondered if the team approach Jobs has designed will continue for the long haul. After a few years, will Apple continue to do as well without a single visionary of Jobs' calibre to lead them, he asked. While Golvin praised Cook as a skilled manager, he noted that neither Cook nor anyone else inside Apple "has the same set of skills as Steve Jobs -- but then, nobody does."

by MacNN Staff