Will Apple without Steve Jobs suffer like Microsoft without Bill Gates?

Apple faces an uncertain future if Steve Jobs doesn't return as CEO. The big question is this: Will Apple face the same fate that Microsoft has in the years after Bill Gates left the company's helm?

Apple was built in the image of Steve Jobs, in the same way that Microsoft was built on the mold of Bill Gates. Jobs is intuitive, creative, and some people even believe, visionary. He used that creative side to oversee the creation of products that created entire new markets, or that took existing markets and re-imagined them. The iPod, iPhone and iPad, are only the latest iterations of a long line. His best work came when he followed his instincts for what made great products, rather than analyzing an existing market and figuring out how to get a cut of it.

That means Apple, to a certain extent, is like a Hollywood studio, dependent on a continual string of blockbusters. Without blockbuster products, it won't be able to sustain its recent explosive growth.

Microsoft, under Gates, was the anti-Apple. Microsoft was built on taking existing products and technologies, refining them, and then single-mindedly crushing the competition and dominating existing markets. It was rare that a 1.0 product succeeded; many people used to say that only when version 3.0 came it, did Microsoft dominate a market.

That business approach reflected Gates' hyper-competitive, intensely analytical nature. He was also averse to bureaucracy and red tape, and refused to let Microsoft get fat and happy. He was continually focused on the next market to dominate, not just wringing out as much profit as possible from existing product lines.

When Gates began to pull back from his primary role at Microsoft, all that began to change. He stepped down as CEO in 2000, but continued to work in a somewhat diminished role at the company. In 2006 he gave up the title of chief software architect, and by 2008 stopped working full time there.

In those years, the company began to get bogged down by political in-fighting. Rather than looking to dominate new markets, the focus was more on getting as much profit as possible from the old. With Gates and his focus gone, Microsoft fell behind in the biggest growth markets, such as mobile. If Gates has been engaged with the company as he had in his earlier years, that never would have happened.

Will Apple face a similar fate if Jobs doesn't return? I think the likelihood is that it will. The company will be fine for the next three and maybe five years, because there's likely product plans overseen by Jobs in the pipeline for three or more years.

What happens beyond that? Given that Apple is built on blockbusters, I don't think it can continue to thrive in the long term. Jobs is one-of-a-kind; I don't know of anyone else in the industry capable of knowing the kinds of technology products people want before even they know it themselves.

If Jobs doesn't return, Apple will still certainly be a successful company, in the same way that Microsoft has been a successful company, even after Gates left. But it likely won't enjoy the same kind of stratospheric growth it has experienced under Jobs.