Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Steve Jobs takes medical leave of absence from Apple until June

This is a serious blow. Expect Apple to open the markets in the negative territory.

Apple's stock plunged 7 percent.

There has been much speculation about Jobs and his health. Lately, he has looked wain and dropped a lot of weight. Jobs did put a statement out a couple of weeks ago, to stop his medical speculation, that it was a treatable hormone imbalance, but today's statement has everyone a buzz.
"During the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought," he wrote.

Jobs is a cancer survivor, pancreatic, and now the rumors are a buzz. And the cryptic message above to Apple employees will not help the stock.
Even so, the limited amount of medical information in that announcement did little to soothe Wall Street's nerves, and in interviews last week analysts predicted that the health watch would continue.

CNBC’s Jim Goldman reported that the announcement comes a week after sophisticated blood tests revealed new information about Jobs’ health – and that several news organizations, including CNBC, were working on the story.

“The fact is that Apple was sitting on news that the company didn't want to disclose,” said Goldman. “It began to leak out from people who should know.”

I am definitely not for outing in any case, especially when one is battling a medical problem, but Jobs is so associated with Apple, the face of Apple, that this is a big blow.

I hope he recovers, and I hope that the cancer has not returned, but he does deserve the right of privacy with his family to fight whatever the ailment may be.

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