Dr. Eric Schmidt, the man behind Google’s amazing rise to fame, has just taken on a new job. He joins the board of a company that includes five Chief Exec’s of some of the world’s major companies. You can bet they don’t spend much time discussing the annual Christmas party.

The members of this board have an incredible track record. First is Bill Campbell, chairman of Intuit and whose previous roles have included being vice president of ad. agency J. Walter Thompson, president of pen-based computing GO Corporation and president of software publishers Claris. Millard Drexler, currently CEO of clothiers J Crew, used to be president of The Gap. Whilst Arthur Levinson’s day job is running biotechnologists Genentech where he used to be vice president of Research.

The two most financially minded members are firstly Fred Anderson, ex-vice president and chief finance officer, who spends his time running private equity firm Elevations as well as helping out at eBay and Homestore. Second is Jerry York, listed in the 100 most influencial finaciers in the world, who fills in his idle moments running Harwinton Capital. Finally comes Al Gore who once served as vice president of the world…err…America. Only the big cheese himself, Steve Jobs. doesn’t list a previous role as being president although he does have a nice part time job on the board of the Walt Disney Company.

The company in question, Apple, has also been turning in some pretty amazing profits, making them all multi-millions to add to their existing piles. Unlike their some-time competitor Dell, where things have not been going so well lately. Apple’s shares are worth around $60 each and the company has a huge wad of cash in the bank including a fair chunk of my pocket money over the years. Poor Michael Dell is feeling the pinch. People aren’t buying his goodies like the used to, his MP3 player flopped, his laptops burst into flame and his main operating system supplier keeps failing to deliver on the next one.

Some soothe sayers have been promising the tie-up between Google and Apple will become more than just a permanent link to Google in Apple’s proprietary web browser, Safari. Maybe so, but more interestingly, others are saying it’s time for Apple to allow Dell to licence their family jewel, Mac OS X. Michael Dell has even said that he would love to do so. It’s likely that printer makers HP have also looked sideways at Mac OS X. For both, their own Unix and Linux offerings don’t make up much of a money spinner. Unlike IBM where their OS2 was usurped by its developer so they have more invested in Unix systems. IBM also did some work with Apple and Motorola on a joint operating system about 15 years ago, and Mac OS X is Unix underneath its glitz. ITWeek even have a rumour that Apple and Unix-based Sun will link up.

The problem is that Apple have been down this path before and licensed the then current Mac OS to other computer manufacturers, only to realise that they made computers cheaper than Apple and so stole hardware sales.
This time things may be a little different. The latest Mac Pro desktops are, surprisingly, cheaper than equivalent Dells. HP make some attractive high-end work stations with equally unattractive price tags. Maybe Apple would be able to defend its own sales while building market share of its operating system. Even Microsoft has started to talk about computers as pieces of design rather than beige boxes.

When the iPod arrived, many laughed at its design, scoffed at its price and said it would flop. No-one would want it. How wrong they were. It’s doubtful that many iPod users have actually translated into Apple computer sales but people have started to look at the design of computers and are realising that, unfortunately, it sometimes pays to hand over a few extra notes to get something a little more aesthetic, robust and not slung together at the cheapest price. The bonus of it “just works” and being able to run their old Windows software could be the clincher. Even my brother-in-law who used my Mac OS X the other day said it was “Nice”, which for his addiction to Windows, is an enormous tribute.

Whatever happens, Apple is obviously a different company than before, more of a solutions supplier than strictly a computer company. Its fingers dangle in completely different flavours of pie stretching from iTunes and iPod to some of the most desirable laptops and work stations. Plus they can now run just about every operating system in the world. Finally, Steve Jobs has been down this path before when he made NeXT run on just about any CPU rather than his own Cubes… Mac OS X is, in reality, NeXT just in a different wrapper.