Problem with Apple Role Nonexistent for Google CEO

Eric Schmidt, the chief executive officer of Google, is looking into taking government inquiries regarding his personal role on the board of Apple Inc. He has expressed a confidence in that kind of probe which will not locate any evidence that there might be some form of ties that link the two companies together in order to thwart the competition of mobile phones as well as other fields of technology. In one media session that was held last Thursday (with the shareholders of Google’s meeting located in Mountain View), Schmidt had mentioned that he is not going to step down from the board of Apple since he does not see the iPhone and iPod maker as their primary competitor. He also repeated that at the time when a particular shareholder had asked him to not be part of the Apple board so that he can avoid any more government scrutiny.

Overlapping Board Relationships

Kent Walker, the attorney for Google, had confirmed that the company is currently involved in a lot meeting with the FTC or the Federal Trade Commission regarding the overlapping board relationships they have with Apple is clearly in violation with the federal antitrust laws. Such an inquiry was also reported earlier this week by The New York Times. Google generates a good number of its income thanks to online advertising which drives the search engine. However, it is also because of the chief architect of their operating system they call “Android” which is already becoming the OS of choice for a lot of mobile devices that are like the iPhone. Android will also be the operating system for some netbooks sometime during the latter part of the year. Schmidt had joined the board of Apple back in 2006 though he would always excuse himself during board meetings that revolve around the subject of the iPhone.

Interlocking Board Relationships

The shareholder who has requested Schmidt to step down from the board of Apple at a Google annual meeting also thinks that some interlocking board relationships will thereby cause some headaches for Google. Brandon Rees, the representative for AFL-CIO holdings in the company Google, says that there should be no reason for such a thing since it wouldn’t be of any value to their shareholders. He maintains there is not much for them to gain but there is a lot to lose. Basically, they do not want Google to be some sort of antitrust devil just like Microsoft. Schmidt had earlier scoffed at an analogy with a session wherein he asserted that there is really no comparison between the behavior of Google as well as the attempts of Microsoft to stifle their competition in this computer software market since the time of the 1990s.