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Fake E-Mail Results in Angry Apple Shareholders
drhamad writes "Apple stock dropped 2.2% today in mid-afternoon trading as Engadget published news based on a faked e-mail inside Apple. 'Apparently an internal memo was sent to several Apple employees--and forwarded to Engadget--around 9am CT today saying that Apple issued a press release with the news that the iPhone was now scheduled for October, and Leopard was delayed until January. About an hour and a half after that e-mail went out, a second e-mail was sent--this time officially from Apple--saying the first e-mail was a fake, and that the delivery schedule for the iPhone and Leopard had not changed.'"
I'm a fan of Apple products and am about to buy one, but can't resist pointing out that whoever did this is engaged in very tiny-scale fraud compared to what Steve Jobs and the rest of upper management have already admitted doing.
They have admitted:
* Inventing on paper a fake Board of Directors Committee meeting that never took place (source)
* Using this fake meeting to backdate options at a total benefit to Jobs of $20 million (contrary to Jobs' false spin) (same source)
* Backdating a total of 6,400 stock options grants over five years, including two to Jobs (source)
Those facts are agreed by all parties. All that's being fought about now is WHICH senior executives and board members were at fault. Since obviously Jobs rules Apple so loosely that this kind of thing can go on under his nose (cough) and just HAPPENS to have also happened at Pixar.
The crazy part is that backdating itself is totally legally, and doesn't even affect how you accont for the options, as the New Yorker has pointed out in an excellent short essay. You just have to disclose what you did, and that, it seems, threatens the pride of a lot of Silicon Valley execs who like to pretend that stock options are a performance motivator (when in the case of backdated options they are not).
Anyway, so some guy breeched Apple security and sent out a fake email, and probably made some cash on the stock dip. He'll probably be hunted down and prosecuted and do some time, which is kind of sad, considering far more money has been fraudulently obtained by some of the top people at Apple (again, that is not in dispute) and top people at tech companies all over the Valley.
Not going to keep me from buying a Mac, but sad nevertheless.
Although, even with that much "paid advertising" it still didn't help them garner any market share.
It wasn't until they started to move to Intel that they picked up any gains. Even then there is something to be said about the iPod driving iPod users to macs because of software and hardware incompatibilities.