Hardware
Schmidt Resigns from Apple Board after FCC Starts Inquiry
Timing is everything and whether or not Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple’s Board of Directors because of the FCC starting an inquiry over the Apple pulling the Google Voice apps and not allowing Google’s own app for Google Voice to go forward or not, this will always look like their is a cause and effect. One thing for sure, things are roiling a bit because of the FCC.
Sumocat reported on the FCC inquiry on Friday when the news broke. Interestingly enough, AT&T has already come out with a statement that isn’t a statement. Its statement says “AT&T does not manage or approve applications for the App Store.†While this flies in the face of AT&T’s previous shenanigans with the SlingMedia app (changing terms of service, changing them back again, then admitting that their network traffic can’t handle the user load, then trying to rebrand the iPhone from a phone to a computer), the statement is an obvious piece of spin. Of course they don’t manage or approve apps in the App Store. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have a say in what does or does not get approved.
I think the FCC has found a few soft spots in the underbellies of Google, Apple, and AT&T, and we’re just beginning to see what will certainly prove to be a long and interesting drama unfold.
GoodThings2Life
08/03/2009 at 9:20 am
Agreed on all points.
Schmidt could be resigning because he is directly responsible for the matter, he could simply be the fall-guy for it… or he could have disputed the decision and been overruled by others and it could just be a matter of losing favor.
Whatever the reason, the timing is definitely inconvenient for Apple.
Loren Heiny
08/03/2009 at 11:29 am
Google’s Eric Schmidt was convenient to have on the board when the iPhone didn’t have an SDK and developing web apps was the suggested solution or in strategizing how best to leverage the browser without Flash. Both are approaches Google often espouses.
However, I think they both came at this from two directions. For instance, Apple didn’t want Flash on the iPhone because it wants to control the development platform. Google doesn’t care about Flash because it favors the browser-standards (HTML 5, Javascript, etc) style of development and Flash isn’t part of that.
With the recent FCC questionaire about the iPhone apps rejection issue, Schmidt probably was having to recuse himself from one more obvious board topic. In other words, where it seemed like the two companies, Apple and Google, were agreeing on a strategy, they really weren’t and the overlapping of the boards was never going to last.
Competition wins again. Hopefully, nobody in the companies has taken the realization of this personally and we can get back to the two companies being independent at the board level.
Pzohjovic
08/23/2009 at 3:47 am
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