NEWS: Google CEO Eric Schmidt Resigns From Apple Board. Surprised?

Lots of people will be arguing today that this was inevitable, but
the news comes faster than expected. Google CEO Eric Schmidt is no
longer going to sit on Apple’s Board of Directors, nearly 3 years
after accepting a seat.

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<http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/03/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-resigns-from-apple-board-surprised/>

ALSO: "Why Schmidt Had To Go"

What happens when the enemy of your enemy is no longer your friend?
You cast him out, as Steve Jobs seems to have done to Google CEO Eric
Schmidt, who today resigned his seat from Apple's board. An alliance
which began with a mutual distrust of Microsoft is now under strain
because of a mutual distrust of each other. Google is not so much the
enemy of Microsoft as it is the enemy of the old model of
device-centric computing which both Microsoft and Apple represent.

The announcement comes on the heels of an FCC investigation into
Apple's iPhone App Store that was announced on Friday evening. The
subject of that investigation is nominally the rejection of a Google
app, Google Voice, from the App Store, but it is really an
investigation into the closed and arbitrary nature of how apps get
approved for the iPhone.

In other words, Google brought down the disapproving scrutiny of the
FCC onto Apple on Friday night, and on Monday morning Schmidt
resigned. It is difficult not to make a connection between these two
events.

...

If nothing else, last Friday's letters from the FCC was a wake-up
call to Apple that Google stands on the opposite side of the fence
when it comes to the evolution of the mobile Web. Google wants the
mobile Web to be as open as the Internet. It's entire mobile strategy
is predicated on open access for all apps, devices, and services
because that creates a larger, more vibrant, and more searchable
mobile Web.

Apple is not about being open. It never has been. Every app on the
iPhone (all 50,000 of them) must be approved individually, for
instance. This difference in approach wasn't a problem until Google
started to have mobile aspirations of its own. Asked to choose
between furthering Apple's mobile agenda or Google's, Schmidt must
choose Google's. It is his fiduciary duty. That conflict is only
going to grow. And that is perhaps why Jobs says his "effectiveness
as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished."

MORE:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/03/AR2009080300968.html>