Smoke, But No Fire, at Apple Shareholders' Meeting


Apple CEO Steve Jobs and the board of directors came under some fire at Thursday's annual shareholders' meeting, but the board in its entirety was re-elected, as the Houston Chronicle reports.

With shares easily breaking the $100 mark and record profits, there was little for shareholders to complain about. But some shareholder representatives demanded an explanation of the backdated stock options scandal, which one shareholder representative described as a 'cancer' eating at the company.

Jobs deflected the criticism with aplomb. He also dealt swiftly and tactfully with the public criticisms made by former CFO Fred Anderson, who was recently forced to pay $3.5 million in fines for his part in the options scandal.

Environmental proposals from shareholders were withdrawn following Jobs' announcement last week of Apple's 'green' schemes.

In other news from the meeting - usually good for a few product rumors - Jobs said Apple employees had been playing with the iPhone 'a lot'. Asked whether Apple would open up the 'closed' iPhone system to third-party application developers, Jobs said it was an issue the company had been 'wrestling' with.