Apple CEO Jobs back at work

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-30 11:57

SAN FRANCISCO: Apple's iconic chief executive Steve Jobs has returned to work after a five-month medical leave of absence during which he underwent a liver transplant.

Apple's iconic chief executive Steve Jobs, pictured in 2008, has returned to work after a five-month medical leave of absence during which he underwent a liver transplant. [Agencies]

"Steve is back to work," Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman, said on Monday. "He is currently at Apple a few days a week and working from home the remaining days.

"We are very glad to have him back," Dowling said, declining to provide any further details.

The 54-year-old Jobs, the visionary behind the wildly successful Macintosh computer, iPhone and iPod, announced in January that he was taking a leave of absence to deal with "complex" health issues.

Apple has declined to release any further information about Jobs's health since the January announcement but a Tennessee hospital confirmed last week that he had received a liver transplant.

It said Jobs was "now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis."

Apple has been notoriously secretive about Jobs's health since he underwent an operation in 2004 for pancreatic cancer.

Apple last week released the first public comment from Jobs since he went on medical leave, a brief statement in which he lauded the sales of Apple's latest model iPhone.

Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer in the garage of the Jobs family home in 1976 and the company's fortunes have been uniquely linked to Jobs, who returned to the California company in 1997 after a 12-year absence and turned around the flagging technology giant.

Under Jobs, the company introduced its first Apple computers and then the Macintosh, which became wildly popular in the 1980s.

Jobs left Apple in 1985 after an internal power struggle and started NeXT Computer company specializing in sophisticated workstations for businesses. He co-founded Academy-Award-winning Pixar in Emeryville, California, in 1986.

Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006 in a 7.4-billion-dollar deal that gave Jobs a seat on its board of directors and made him the entertainment titan's biggest single shareholder.

Apple shares lost 0.33 percent in New York on Monday to close at 141.97 dollars.