Google chief executive Eric Schmidt on Thursday said he plans to discuss his role on the board of directors at Apple with the company following Google's announcement that it is working on an operating system for personal computers.
Schmidt [pictured] has served on Apple's board since 2006. He has already implemented a policy of recusing himself from discussions involving the iPhone at Apple, given that Google's Android software competes with the iPhone for consumer and developer attention, but before his appearance at the Sun Valley media conference on Thursday, he had not responded to direct inquires about whether he will have to do something similar when Mac OS X development is discussed at Apple.
While the announcement of Google's Chrome OS will not result in any products that compete with Apple until 2010 — at the earliest — Schmidt told attendees at the conference, sponsored by Allen & Co, that he will talk the situation over with Apple at some point in the future. Google and Apple have already reportedly drawn interest from the Federal Trade Commission over Schmidt's role on that board, which is unlikely to subside given Google's new direction.
Schmidt, who appeared on stage at the conference with Google co-founder Larry Page, also said that Page and Sergey Brin needed to talk him into the Chrome browser and OS project at first. "Having come through the bruising browser wars, I didn't want to do that again," the Wall Street Journal's Digits blog quoted him saying in response to questions about Chrome OS. Once Schmidt saw a demo, however, he changed his mind.
