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Once again, the technology mediasphere is engrossed with Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs' health, and the questions are ricocheting off the virtual walls: What did Apple know? When did it know it? What is it legally obliged to reveal?
This latest round of speculation was prompted by a weekend Wall Street Journal report revealing that Jobs had a liver transplant in April. The WSJ did not reveal the name of its source. Also, both Reuters and CNBC reported Monday that Jobs was seen on the company's Cupertino campus.
Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling did not address the transplant issue, but he did tell MacNewsWorld in an email that "Steve continues to look forward to returning to Apple at the end of June, and there is nothing further to say."
Maybe nothing further from Apple, but the aforementioned mediasphere -- whose members range from Wall Streeters keeping an eye on the company stock to competing tech reporters chasing their own sources to bloggers charged with reporting the excruciating minutiae of every Apple development -- has almost as many new questions as the iPhone has apps: Who leaked the transplant story to the WSJ? Would a liver transplant indicate a more serious condition than the "hormonal imblance" Jobs announced in January when he took leave of his CEO duties? Does a Jobs sighting at company headquarters mean he's recovered? And does any of this mean Apple is violating any Securities and Exchange Commission rules regarding disclosure to shareholdrers and investors?
The Legalities
Some of the answers to questions regarding Apple's fiduciary responsibilities may lie within case law and precedents rather than statutes, said Sean O'Connor, professor and chairman of the law, technology and arts group at the University of Washington School of Law.
"What you have, basically, is a company that doesn't have a duty to disclose just anything the shareholders would want to know," O'Connor told MacNewsWorld. "But once it does start disclosing something that is material to the shareholders, it can't do it halfway and can't do anything that misrepresents the truth."
The turning point for Apple may have come with Jobs' January statement citing the hormonal imbalance as a reason for taking a six-month leave of absence. Up until then, Jobs -- who may be CEO but is also a company employee -- was protected by federal health privacy regulations.
However, the pressure from outside media and internal legal counsel may have forced Jobs' hand earlier this year, O'Connor said.
"Apple is trying to disclose very little and control the message," he noted, "and was going so fairly carefully. It was Steve himself who then kind of broke from the message and talking points when he started talking about hormonal imblances. And since he is the head of the company, he can be seen as an agent of the company when he speaks on behalf of Apple."
If someone inside Apple leaked news of a liver transplant to the WSJ -- with Apple's knowledge -- then the company may be playing a dangerous game, according to O'Connor, "because as soon as you start opening the door and let out information, however it comes out, then you will have to come out and tell the whole truth" in the event shareholders sue over stock price damage.
If the information came from a "rogue" employee acting independently, "it will be interesting to see if that person who leaked will be willling to fall on their sword" for the company, O'Connor said.
The Business Strategy
During Jobs' absence, Apple introduced its new iPhone 3G S, lowered the price on its 3G model, showed the world a preview of its new OS X Snow Leopard operating system, and launched a new line of notebook computers.
That indicates the presence of a solid Apple executive team, observed Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe.
"That team has been the same for almost 10 years now," Howe told MacNewsWorld, "and they're pretty good at working as a team. Steve Jobs is the chief marketing officer who also happens to be CEO. He's the guy who projects the vision, but there's an awful lot of execution around the company, and it's those guys who execute on the vision."
No other business or media strategy would have worked as well for Apple during the past six months, in Howe's view, and he discounted the "Steve Jobs is special" argument that the company should be forthcoming with news about his health because he's so closely tied to the Apple brand.
"There aren't a lot of other companies issuing press releases about their CEO's health," noted Howe. "The second point is, if he's so special, how did the company get through the last six months doing OK? The answer is that since he came back in 1999, he's worked pretty hard to build a team."
