Apple CEO Apologizes For Stock Practices

If you have been following the news lately, you may have heard that Apple has conducted an internal investigation over its stock-option practices as well as some concerns about the accounting of the company. An article published in The New York Times today, October 5, 2006 stated that the chief finance officer has resigned his position on the board of directors in 2004. It seems as though, despite these problems, Steve Jobs’s position is not in question and he apologized for the problems that had occurred, “on my watch.” The problem that Steve Jobs was mainly referring to was a “back-dating” of stock options which can occur when insiders decide to enhance rewards by retroactively pinning the option's exercise price to a low point in the stock's value. Apple states in its investigation that it found irregularities in the recording of these stock option grants. From the article it doesn’t seem as though these problems will be a serious threat to Apple or Steve Jobs. What do you think, could problems like these affect Apple’s image at all?
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Apple-Stock-Options.html?ref=business