January 14, 2009 7:13PM

Steve Jobs is Sick After All

By Ray Hennessey

Steve Jobs is too sick to serve as CEO. At least for now.

Leave it to Apple to snatch shareholder-rights defeat from the jaws of victory. Not too long ago, we were praising Jobs for coming clean and admitting, amid gobs of speculation, that Jobs was ill. He referred to his sickness as a "hormone imbalance" that caused him to lose weight. He also said that treatment was fairly simple and he expected to recover by late spring.

Unfortunately, Jobs said Wednesday that he needs to step aside as CEO of Apple to undergo treatment.

But, yet again, it was the way Apple disclosed the news that was problematic for those looking for honest, straight-forward answers from the company.

First, Apple disclosed the illness in a letter from Jobs himself, where he first lamented that the "curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction." Only after complaining about all this speculation -- which was A) fueled by Apple's stubborn resistance to address it in the first place, and B) true -- did he say that "during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought."

Jobs is taking medical leave until the end of June. Tim Cook will run the company in the interim.

But Apple did leave a big question unanswered -- one that plays into the potential volatility of the stock: Is this indeed still just a hormone imbalance, or is it something deeper, perhaps related to his pancreatic cancer? There is no mention of the nature of his illness, or what made it more complex than he originally thought just a week ago.

That will be the source of much speculation over the next few months. Apple would be well-served giving updates on what hopefully becomes a full recovery.