With Jobs Back From Leave, Would Apple's Cook Bolt?

According to one report, however, Cook's increased visibility has made him especially attractive from a leadership standpoint both inside and outside Apple. In fact, he's been a prized executive for long enough that at least two of the country's largest IT vendors tried to lure him away in the past two years.

A Tuesday story in The Wall Street Journal said Cook was wooed by Dell two years ago, and that Motorola tried to snag him in 2008. The Journal doesn't specify what positions Cook was supposedly offered or the nature of how either Dell or Motorola approached Cook, but it does suggest that the possibility of Cook being poached has ruffled plenty of feathers among Apple's board of directors. That, in turn, has led to speculation that Cook will be offered a seat on the board.

Jobs himself appears to be on the mend, and a number of reports this week suggested he may already be back on the job at Apple. Most reports said Jobs was participating in active day-to-day operations at Apple via e-mail, but a Reuters reporter wrote Monday that he'd spotted Jobs exiting Apple's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters sporting his signature jeans and black mock turtleneck.

Jobs' only public statements this month were in an Apple press release Monday touting the more than one million mark in sales the iPhone 3G S saw in its debut weekend.

If Jobs is indeed back in the driver's seat at Apple, where does that leave Cook? Does he once again yield the spotlight back to Apple's most visible face, or continue to enjoy his newfound spot at the center of the action?

Any "analysis" along these lines is pure speculation, of course. Cook is in a great position at Apple and he isn't exactly waving the "I'm ready to leave" flag, at least not in public. But the possibility of Cook jumping ship is too unnerving to ignore completely, no?

"At this point, losing Tim Cook would be a bigger deal to investors than if Steve Jobs stepped aside," said Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster to the Journal. "Just that thought makes my stomach tighten up."