Just as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) products started looking more and more like viable alternatives for a growing swath of business users, the company lost the legendary Steve Jobs as CEO (he'll now serve as board chairman). What does his departure mean for products and customers down the road? There are about as many opinions as there are websites. Here are a few:

In the camp that insists Apple will continue along its highly successful trajectory in the post-Jobs world without a major disruption are James Allworth, Max Wessel  and Rob Wheeler, fellows at the Forum for Growth and Innovation at Harvard Business School. They argue that Jobs so effectively infused the company with a culture of innovation that it will sustain itself without him.

"Now, the culture has coalesced to such a point that every time someone at Apple makes a decision--from the color of metal panelling in the retail stores to the animations on the iPhone's interface--that Apple employee has one overriding thought: What would Steve do?" they write in a post at Harvard Business Review.

Jason Snell at Mac world offers a similar point of view. For the past 14 years, Jobs has not made the business all about himself, Snell argues. Instead, he has worked to mold the rest of the workforce in his image. "The executives are people who he trusts, people who have worked with him closely and understand his product philosophy. The creation of Apple University is an attempt to codify what we might as well call the Apple Way, which is essentially the Steve Jobs-driven product and business philosophy that has shaped today's Apple," he writes.

Offering a different perspective is CIO magazine's Tom Kaneshige, who maintains that no one else can match the leadership Jobs displayed at Apple. Although things are lined up to move along smoothly over the next couple years, in the long term Apple's hallmark innovation is likely to suffer. Very few individuals can visualize products and markets the way Jobs can.

Apple is also losing a CEO who worked closely with engineers and knew how to hire top talent, Kaneshige writes. Taking a markedly different view from Allworth, Wessel and Wheeler, tech analyst Rob Enderle, cited by Kaneshige, predicts a difficult transition to new leadership.

"Steve Jobs redesigned Apple around his unique skill set, and then not only didn't mentor a replacement but blocked the board from creating one," Enderle said. "That has just become a problem. Apple will have to change. Like Disney after Walt, that change is likely to eventually be very painful."

The big challenge for Jobs's successor, former COO Tim Cook, will be to edge the company into new markets, such as video and publishing, write Yukari Iwatani Kane and Jessica E. Vascellaro at The Wall Street Journal. "Unlike the iPod and music, where Apple has a commanding position, the battle to rule online video remains wide open and the company faces fierce competition," they write. The company won't take the same kinds of risks that it took under Jobs's direction, said Forrester Research Chief Executive George Colony.

For more:
- see Allworth, Wessel and Wheeler's post at Harvard Business Review
- see Jason Snell's post at Macworld
- see Tom Kaneshige's post at CIO
- see Kane and Vascellaro's article at The Wall Street Journal

Related Articles:
Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO
Steve Jobs vs. Google, RIM and Twitter
Steve Jobs collaborates on biography