Google CEO Eric Schmidt is joining Apple Computer’s board of directors, the computer maker said on Tuesday, creating a close tie between two of Silicon Valley’s most iconic companies.
The addition of Schmidt to the board of Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple brings the total number of board members to eight, including Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and CEO, and Al Gore, former vice president of the United States.
“Apple is one of the companies in the world that I most admire,” Schmidt said in a statement. “I’m really looking forward to working with Steve (Jobs) and Apple’s board to help with all of the amazing things Apple is doing.”
Schmidt joined Google from software maker Novell, where he was chairman and CEO. Previously, he was chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems. In the early 1980s, he worked as a researcher at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center and at Bell Labs and ZiLOG.
Gapple? THis week’s Marketwatch column by John addresses the real meaning of all this. He suspects it is part of an Apple-Sun merger! Read it here.
If people had any idea who all sat on these boards, the world would have a spontaneous “Fight Club”-style epiphany.
In a stunning move sure to send ripples across the tech industry, Apple today announced another member to it’s Board of Directors. That person? You guessed it: Frank Stallone.
If Apple and Google played their cards right, they could give M$ a run for its money and give people a real choice instead of Bill chosing for you.
I am finally getting the Apple training videos of the early 90’s ( my dad worked for apple Latin America as Director of Tech Support for Mexico), and the videos they used, mind you this was the Jean-Louis Gassé loves/hates jobs time, showed something called the knowledge navigator and you could see that it was not about the machines ( although they showed really avant garde stuff ) but about integration with your lifestyle, you working environment and your family. If anyone has seen them you’ll see what I mean…though it has been about 14 years. and it looks like it’s going to be a blast to see what they come up with. better late than never.
Please educate me. Has anyone heard anything good a board has done? All the good companies and products never originated in a board room. However, all the corrupt and inept companies and products where never stopped, only enabled by boardroom politics and corruption. In theory these boards should be more involved; but; in practice they are lame sycophants. For example Ross Perot tried to change/save GM while he was on it’s board; Instead, Perot had to resign from the GM board in 1986 because of their hostility. Look at GM today.
In the MarketWatch article you mention that Apple has no M&A chops. Not quite true, at least on the software side. Apple acquired the basis for FinalCut from Macromedia, if I remember correctly. Apple also bought the German company whose people now write the Logic and GarageBand software. Oh, and don’t forget Apple bought NeXT which got them a team to write a new OS, and Jobs. I think Apple likes to cherry pick little companies with good products that have the potential to become great products.
On the other hand, I don’t recall them buying a hardware company.
I see a Sun-Apple-Google alliance more than a merger, since I don’t think any of the individual heads are ready to step down, but it does make sense. There’s little overlap between the three camps, and each could benefit from the other (Sun’s vertical markets, Apple’s marketing and positioning, and Google’s innovation).
Companies like impressive people sitting on boards. For this they pay an unbelievable amount of money for a few days work a year. A single board member is irrelevant. Only the corporate, or majority of a board can change anything. Most appointments are carefully crafted to maintain a particular direction of a company.
Grammar, blogger. “Whom.”
Jhayden, you missed Apple’s most important acquisition. . .and, later, resell, Pixar.
I am equally interested in what Steve Jobs will do on Disney’s board.
“Grammar, blogger. “Whom.””
If two entities are merging, aren’t they both the subject as they are both doing the merging?
I think this would be the applicable rule:
“whom |hoōm| pronoun used instead of “who” as the object of a verb or preposition : [ interrog. pron. ] whom did he marry? | [ relative pron. ] her mother, in whom she confided, said it wasn’t easy for her.
From Dictionary (Merriam-Webster) licensed to Apple Computer.
Why should Apple merge with Sun?
Why should Apple buy Sun?
No reason.
Sun is going to the same place that DEC went. Tits up.
Apple can wait and buy Sun for almost nothing in a year or so. Why spend $20G today when you spend half that a year from now.
“With whom” is correct, but who cares? Well, o.k., I do, but I’m the English major. The language is ever changing, and I’m betting that, one day soon, “whom” will disappear altogether. I’m not happy about it, but I’m an old fart. At least I’ll be able to sit in my rocking chair and crow, “Back in the day, we said whom,” as I toss my grammar book at the young whippersnappers.