Tim Cook, 50 who was recruited from Compaq by Steve Jobs is the new boss of Apple. Observers say he has a “very”tough job ahead.

The Wall Street Journal said that there are few chief executives who are as closely identified with a company as Steve Jobs has been with Apple. Now that he is stepping down as chief executive — although he will be chairman — it will largely be up to his deputies to make sure that the company continues to stay ahead of the competition with trend-setting products and services that impress consumers.

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As CEO, he provided a charismatic persona and sharp instinct for knowing what consumers want. But his bench is considered a strong management team that has largely stayed out of the limelight until now.

His likely successor, Tim Cook, 50, was being groomed to become a top executive at Compaq Computer. when Mr. Jobs recruited him in 1998. Compaq was sold to Hewlett Packards a year later.

The New York Times reported that Apple’s stock dropped in after-hours trading, falling $16.61, or 4.4 percent, to $359.57.

They said that Jobs founded Apple in 1976 with Steve Wozniak, and built the company’s reputation with the Apple II and Macintosh computers. He left Apple in 1985 after a conflict with John Sculley, then the chief executive. The following year, with a small group of Apple employees, he founded NeXt Computer, which ultimately focused on the corporate computing market, without notable success. In 1986, he bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm and re-established it as the independent animation studio Pixar.

A decade later he sold the NeXt operating system to Apple and returned to the company. In short order he was again at the helm and set out to modernize the company’s computers.

With the more recent introduction of the iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad, Apple has shaken up the media and cellphone industries.

“Tim was the ultimate decision maker,” said Greg Petsch, who was Mr. Cook’s boss at Compaq as the head of global manufacturing. Mr. Petsch remembers him as being tough, but calm unlike Mr. Jobs, who is known for his fiery temper. “You can be a tough manager, and never have to raise your voices just by defining the requirements upfront. (Tim) was very specific in terms of his expectations,” he said.

At Apple, he oversaw the manufacturing of its computers for several years before he was given responsibility for the company’s world-wide sales and its Macintosh computer division. He became chief operating officer in 2005.
People, who know him at Apple, say he is polite but persistent and unyielding in his demands. They also say that he can absorb a huge amount of data and quickly pinpoint any problems.

In addition to Mr. Cook, Apple’s recent innovations have also been helped by deputies like Jonathan Ive, an Apple senior vice president who oversees the company’s industrial design team. Described by one person who knows him as “sharing a brain with Steve”, Mr. Ive and his group has been responsible for coming up with the physical look and feel of products that has helped set Apple apart from competitors.

Scott Forstall, who leads the team responsible for the iPhone’s operating system and other software, Eddie Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet services who is regarded as an all-purpose fixer, and Philip Schiller, who runs worldwide marketing are also important figures, who have part of Mr. Jobs’s inner circle for many years.