Schmidt exits Apple role Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has caved in to mounting anti-trust pressure on the company and resigned from the board of Apple. The US Federal Trade Commission launched a probe of his position on the boards of both Google and Apple in May. Mr Schmidt stepped down after Google?s decision last month to launch a PC operating system placed the company in greater competition with Apple. Ben Woodhead Objective profit boost Objective Corp expects to deliver a 20 per cent rise in full-year revenue to $40.3 million and a net profit of about $4.4 million, up from $2 million. In preliminary results released yesterday, chief executive Tony Wall said the company expected to declare an unfranked full-year dividend. Objective will issue its formal results on August 24. Ben Woodhead Bartz admits mistake Yahoo! chief executive Carol Bartz has taken the blame for tepid investor response to its 10-year search partnership with Microsoft, saying she erred in some statements made ahead of the deal. Speaking to The New York Times, Ms Bartz said she was wrong to suggest Yahoo! could pocket as much as $US1 billion ($1.2 billion) in upfront payments from inking a search deal with Microsoft. Ben Woodhead