I was sent a link to this video from one of our readers, it is a touching video and one that strikes many of us who can relate in one way or another to what Steve Jobs went through. There is no doubt, Apple’s future has often been linked to Steve Jobs’ health. While it is true that his return to the company in 1997 marked the start of a remarkable comeback by Apple, the company has evolved a lot in the past decade and it is difficult to imagine that his return would have the incredible impact that many believe it will. Steve Jobs is surely a great mind, probably one of the best in the tech space, but the fact is that Apple’s main products, the Iphone and Ipod are likely to remain the major products of the company for the foreseeable future. And if that is the case, Apple’s current managers are up to the challenge.

Now I’m not saying that the return of Steve Jobs will not have an impact. I’m simply saying that we have to be careful no to overestimate the impact of his return or absence. The company will not sell millions more of its products if Steve Jobs come on our tv. The company will sell more if it continues to have superior products and continues to innovate as it has been doing for the past decade.  I’ve already stated that Apple will be very difficult to stop because of its current position and Steve Jobs is certain to be involved in the production of new products such as a competition to Amazon’s Kindle. But Apple would have done those things even without Steve Jobs so I would be cautious about trading on such news. I will be writing later this week about a new threat to Apple coming from applications available on its own Apps Store, ironic isn’t it? Things change quickly in this field and I’m confident that Apple remains a very promising company but with a current price at over 30 times its earnings, there might be some better opportunities elsewhere in the tech industry. Personally, I’d be very cautious about buying into Apple right now, especially if it is based on the return of Steve Jobs.

One of the interesting aspects to follow in regards to Apple will be if they renew or not their exclusive partnership with AT&T in the US for its Iphone. While the exclusive contract does give it a lot of cash, there is no doubt that it is also slowing its growth as many customers do not want to switch carriers. That decision will come soon as the partnership ends next year!

I have written a few times about Ebay since starting to write on IntelligentSpeculator, and generally been positive about the stock. In fact, it was even one of my 4 stock picks for the 2009 year (in a competition I am still leading by the way!). Basically, one of my beliefs was that analysts were underestimating the impact and importance of two segments of Ebay; its Skype business as well as its Paypal business.

While in the stock picks competition I cannot actually change my picks, I do believe that now would be a good time to sell and even perhaps go short Ebay. Yesterday, Ebay confirmed it had sold its Skype business to a group of private investors for $2.75 billions. The stock did rise a little but the more negative aspect of the sale for me is that this signals a major failure by Ebay in converting Skype into cash flows. The business that could have been has now turned into a fluke. Ebay really did not do much since acquiring Skype showing little innovation, and no signs of a clear business plan. There were some interesting ideas such as pushing for a wifi cell phone on a large scale which could have been costly to launch but if it had caught on, could have been a major product. Imagine having a cell phone that does not charge per phone call or minute used but only charges a monthly fee. Ebay did have some of those ideas, but they were never promoted much and did not amount to anything close to what could/should have been…

Unfortunately, the same story seems to be going on with Paypal. While it is still dominant on the web in the electronic payments market, Paypal has not been showing much in terms of innovation and seems to be at a place where a competitor could quickly gain ground. Much speculation has been made of Google’s possible desire to enter the business but right now, the major threat is from Facebook. While the social media is still a private company, it is very quickly expanding, has a lot of cash and ambition to go with it. Facebook has become the most used social media website and has started to use that power to give itself interesting possibilities. Increasingly, Facebook users can log into different websites all around the web with their Facebook login/password. That expands the brand of course but also makes setting a payment solution much easier as customers are trusting Facebook with an increasing amount of data.

So that leaves Ebay with its core retail business which has been showing little promise and frankly no signs of an upcoming turnaround. While others such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft seem to be launching features and products on a weekly basis, there are very few announcements coming out of Ebay and to me that will end up being its demise.

Was selling Skype an error? No probably not. The error was not doing more with a product that had terrific market share and possibilities… Ebay has been at a standstill for too long and in the current tech environment, no company can afford such a luxury.