Park East Capital, Eric Schmidt has agreed by mutual consent to resign from the Apple board.
Google’s chief executive has had to quit his position on the Apple board because of pressure from shareholders saying it’s a conflict of interest.
Eric Schmidt agreed to leave the apple board by mutual consent this week, something that Park East Capital had predicted several weeks ago would happen. Especially since Google now has a phone operating application and operating system that is in direct competition with the Apples products.
There has been over the last few months’ intense pressure from shareholders on the relationship of Schmidt and the two boards. Sources told Park East Capital that Schmidt has decided to leave the Apple board because the US Federal Trade Commission was starting to investigate the situation.
A spokesperson from the FTC told Park East Capital that both Apple and Google now compete in many of the same markets, both have phones out, operating systems and Internet browsers.
Park East Capital believes that what is more telling is that they both want to bring down Microsoft’s dominance.
Schmidt has been a Director on the Apple board since 2006 and he has always let it be known that any discussion on the iPhone he would leave the meeting. But with the introduction of Google’s new Chrome operating system it put huge pressure on Schmidt to resign his position due to conflict of interest.
It’s not surprising to Park East Capital that Schmidt is leaving the board, what is more surprising is that why was he was the board in the first place and why it took so long for him to leave.
