Steve Jobs has been on a medical leave of absence from Apple since early this year. As I'm writing this, he just announced that he was no longer able to carry out his duties as CEO of Apple. It is sad news when anyone has to give up their passion and, in his case, face an unknown demon–at least unknown to the public–within his body.

Jobs has lived to make everyone's lives easier and fix problems you didn't know you had such as carrying around a cell phone, camera, music player and laptop separately. This techno geek has a following that rivals the greatest professional sports players, and, yet, he and they are mere mortals with some parts that cannot be fixed or replaced.

Can Apple maintain its top innovative-follower status without Steve Jobs? Jobs co-founded Apple and has been kicked out and brought back in. Apparently, the powers that be at Apple discovered he had something no one else was going to deliver. It's been said that Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook has the skills to run Apple. He's been there and performed the multitude of those skills all along, and he could do very well as CEO.