Although most of those innovations occurred after1998, when Apple was under Steve Jobs's leadership, there was a 12-year period in which Jobs was not in charge.The company's ongoing stated strategy had been to leverage "its unique ability to design and develop its own operationssystem, hardware, application software, and services to provide its customers new products and solutions with superior ease-of-use, seamless integration and innovative industrial design. This strategy required not only productdesign and marketing expertise but also scrupulous attention to operational details. Given Apple's global growth inmultiple product categories, and the associated complexityin strategic execution, would the potential loss of oneman be sufficient to prevent the company from sustainingits competitive advantage? Was Steve Jobs essential to Apple’s success?