With the announcement yesterday by Apple (News - Alert) CEO Steve Jobs that he was resigning from his post as CEO but will remain on as Chairman of the Board, a number of us here at TMCnet.com have been asked to reflect upon this moment and what it means.  So here goes.

My very first business computer (yes, BUSINESS COMPUTER), was an Apple II back in 1978. As a content creator and industry analyst, I subsequently was an early beneficiary of the Macintosh GUI, laser printer, AppleTalk LAN, PageMaker graphics software and the powerful VisiCalc spreadsheet program that was first run on Apples. It is why, difficult personality of the boss man and consternation as to the premium price always charged aside, I have always had a soft spot for the company.  

Rushing to judgment makes no sense

While the rest of the world seems to have lots of questions about what is next and wants to rush to judgment about Apple’s fortunes going forward and eulogize the Jobs years, it might be best to remember a few things:

• COO --now CEO --Tim Cook has effectively been “running” the company for some time, and if memory serves me correctly, he has been more than pretty good at it.
• Steve Jobs is not going anywhere. He is stepping back just as Bill Gates (News - Alert) has done. Given his health challenges, he deserves the chance to slow down and reflect. Good for him.
• Apple, after a history of problems regarding company leadership (see below), has wisely had a succession plan in place for years. As has been noted by many, it has a deep and talented bench.
• The corporate culture of continuous innovation knows not just how to create, but how to execute and constantly reinvent itself as well as disintermediate markets for competitive advantage. Apple is not just a great technology company. It is an extraordinary marketing organization and a “take no prisoners” competitor.
• The vision and roadmap for market dominance -- even in markets that move at Internet speed --is sound. It is worth pondering more about how others play catch-up than worrying about Apple.
• Lest we forget, the history of Apple, like all companies, is one of extraordinary achievement and almost catastrophic failure both business and personal. This includes during Jobs various tenures as CEO, advisor and non-CEO executive. For example:
  • Apple’s 1980 IPO generated more capital than any since Ford’s in 1956 and created at that time the largest number of millionaires (roughly 300) in history.
  • In 1983, Jobs’ recruited John Sculley to be CEO to concentrate on product development. However, ultimately the board tossed him because of constant internal clashes . Jobs then founded Pixar Animation Studios. In 1988, another start-up of his introduced the NeXT Computer to compete with Apple. It did not get traction, but Jobs returned as an advisor to Apple in 1996, when Apple purchased NeXT. It was only after the troubled reigns of John Sculley, Michael Spindler and Gil Amelio, that Jobs made a triumphant return as CEO in 2000. He has not been CEO forever, as a younger generation may not be aware.

I point to all of this to highlight that Steve Jobs (News - Alert), while one of the business people of the past century, is mortal. In fact, seemingly in recognition of his mortality and the need to assure the sustainability of the company that is his passion and obsession, amongst his many gifts has been the foresight to plan for the future. I also point this out because, in an age of instant gratification and instant analysis, perspective is important. The passing of the torch from a charismatic leader, while certainly disruptive (some might say disconcerting), does not translate automatically into an assessment that the sky is falling. Indeed, much of what is being written about Apple today looks exactly like what has been written about IBM (News - Alert), GE, etc.

While it is true that the life-cycle of most major companies is roughly 50 years, and that most of the current Fortune 500 were not on the list or even around two decades ago, much of that can be attributed to a failure to change with the times, which happens to be an Apple strong suit. In addition, the history of organizations is about a mysterious mixture of inspiration, perspiration (focus and execution), adaptability, leadership (vision), timing, and luck. Of the things that can be controlled, Apple has most of them to the core.  

True genius

Steve Jobs has been a source of fascination and controversy almost since the moment he dropped out of Reed College in 1972 and began his business career journey. Techies hail him for his vision and technology innovations. Business people have marveled at his product design and marketing skills, business processes, ruthless competitiveness, and dictatorial but widely successful management regime. However, what makes Jobs so compelling is that, like that other college drop out in Seattle, his true uniqueness lies in the fact that he literally is a genius on so many fronts.

The reality is, as Mark Zuckerberg has recently proven, there is no monopoly on creativity. Some young upstart is always waiting in the wings. After all, as I have opined in many venues over the years, we live in a world where:

• The tools for disruptive innovation are inexpensive and globally available
• Anyone with a great idea and Internet access can appear to the rest of the world to be as large and as important as, okay, how about Apple? And they can reach and serve their customers with compelling value-propositions and customer experiences.
• As barriers to entry dissolve and differentiated value is only a click away, marketing and a profound understanding of why having the audacity to accommodate changing user needs (coupled with lightening fast reactions) is the only path to sustainability.

 In a single package, Steve Jobs has been able to create an adaptive, learning organization that not only changes with the times but changes the times themselves. That is how Apple got started.

Today that philosophy stands out as a kind of “back to the future” credo. The company’s current concentration on expanding the boundaries of an entire ecosystem to be first, fast and best in the market is the true genius of Jobs on display now and going forward.

This is not to say that his day-to-day leadership will not be sorely or even badly missed. It will, to an extent that can only be measured with the passage of time. However, whether you consider Jobs an evil genius or just a genius, different does not mean worse off. The Apple world will continue to spin just nicely. Those who underestimate this do so at their peril. They are likely to find out once again the true genius at work.  

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Peter Bernstein is a technology industry veteran, having worked in multiple capacities with several of the industry's biggest brands, including Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert), Telcordia, HP, Siemens, Nortel, France Telecom, and others, and having served on the Advisory Boards of 15 technology startups. To read more of Peter's work, please visit his columnist page.