The following letter went out to all Apple employees today regarding Jobs’ leave of absence from Apple.

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

This comes shortly after last weeks letter to the Apple community stating that Steve’s health issues were nothing more than a hormone imbalance that was being treated and would resolve itself over the course of a few months.

It’s still too early to see the effect on the AAPL stock as this announcement was made shortly prior or right as the markets closed, and although there will be much speculation that this is the start of Steve exiting the company, one item in the letter makes me comfortable for the time being. Jobs stated:

As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out.

I certainly understand the idea that Jobs is in the middle of making transitional moves over to Tim Cook, but the idea that he will be out sooner than 2010 simply wouldn’t make sense to me; however, there have been too many times in my life where I have been wrong. Expect this to be no different.

Get well soon Steve.