Today, January 18, Apple‘s CEO Steve Jobs announced he is taking a medical leave without specifying its precise duration. In his absence, Tim Cook, the current COO of the company, will be responsible for the day-to-day operations, although, in an e-mail to staff, sent the day before, Jobs asserted that he would ‘continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company’.

Though neither Steve Jobs, nor PR department of Apple provided no further information on Job’s health condition, the mass media state it might be connected with the rare type of pancreatic cancer that Jobs survived in 2004 and the medical leave he took in 2009 due to the necessity in the liver transplant operation.

According to market researchers, such news may have a negative impact on the company’s stock market position. According to Guardian.co.uk, «the news was announced when US stock markets were closed for a public holiday, almost certainly saving the company’s stock from a precipitous fall. In after-hours trading in Frankfurt on Monday it fell $22, or 9%.»

Many analysts see Steven Jobs as the father of Apple, both the company and the brand who determines the heartbeat of the company today and tomorrow. «He is cited as the person through whom final design decisions flow, and in whom the «DNA» of the company resides. Every new product that comes out of Apple has Jobs’s fingerprints on it – usually literally», Guardian.co.uk reports.