Very interesting... Bill Campbell has announced that he is stepping down from his post as CEO of Intuit. He'll be replaced by current executive vice president William Harris, whom Campbell claims to have been "grooming" for the post for a while now. ZDNet has more details on this little shake-up.

So, uh, given that Bill is also a member of Apple's board of directors, we find it noteworthy that this happens at a time when Apple is still without a permanent CEO. Now, we at AtAT aren't ones to engage in rampant unfounded speculation. (Oh, wait... yes we are. Never mind.) We're assuming that many of you are way ahead of us on this one, and we're not the only ones thinking that Bill just may be headed for that top seat at Apple. Intuit did say, after all, that Bill had been wanting to "step back from day-to-day management" of Intuit for a while, now, so we consider it entirely possible that he's got something arranged with the rest of the Apple board. Yes, it's a long shot, but rampant speculation just isn't fun without the long shots.

So let's see... in this scenario, Bill takes the CEO slot, Steve grabs chairman of the board, and everyone lives happily ever after. It could happen. MacWorld Expo's only a couple of months away, and it'd be a good time to announce the news. Steve gets to shape policy as chairman of a board who worships the ground he walks on, Bill handles the day-to-day stuff, and it all works out in the end. There's a television ending for you.

Consternation! Uproar! Say so long to the six colors on the Apple logo, because according to Time magazine, they are decidedly passé on the runways this spring. From now on, Apple's distinctively-shaped logo will be sans stripes. Jobs and his staff have agreed that the rainbow stripes are a little too evocative of "Mork and Mindy" at a time when Apple needs to look "Beyond 2000." (And as we all know, Mork was a big, walking fashion "don't.")

The changeover was decided about seven months ago, it seems, and we're already seeing the effects: the Powerbook G3's Apple logo is solid white, and the one on the iMac is Bondi blue. Start hoarding every piece of rainbow-tattooed Apple equipment you can get your paws on, because they may turn out to be collector's items someday. It's not clear to us whether Apple will also ditch the rainbow logo in its advertising; the "Think Different" print ads and billboards wouldn't be nearly as effective without the splash of color.

We're sad to see the rainbow go, though we agree with the reasons for its departure. For those of you finding it difficult to let go, look on the bright side; horizontal stripes make everyone look fat, and who needs a fat Apple in the public eye? Hmmm... Maybe we should start redoing the AtAT logo...

With "Seinfeld" finally closing up shop, Apple's losing one of their best product placements ever. As most of you know (and those that don't know aren't watching nearly enough television), Jerry's had a Mac on his desk in his fictional apartment for years. We believe it started out as a Classic-format system, then got replaced by a Duo in a dock, and finally morphed into the supercool 20th Anniversary Macintosh at the beginning of this last season. Thursday nights won't be the same without that Spartacus peeking out of the screen...

How fitting, then, that according to Adweek, Apple is trying to persuade Jerry to appear in an Apple commercial due to air during the historic final episode. Jerry's never appeared in a commercial during his own show before, and Apple's never used a comedian any of its TV spots; consider it just another example of "thinking different" if it all goes through. Incidentally, we read somewhere that a 30-second ad slot during the Seinfeld farewell show costs $1.5 million dollars; that's even more than the Superbowl slots cost back in January. Yeesh.

In related news, much to our surprise, Apple's new "Steamroller" commercial debuted tonight on ABC and NBC. The new ad, which features a steamroller crushing a line of Wintel laptops, wasn't expected to hit the airwaves for at least a couple more weeks, presumably to allow production of the new Powerbooks to ramp up. We caught it during "Frasier," though we're told it showed up during "Home Improvement" and "NYPD Blue," as well. We can forgive Apple not showing it during "Buffy" too, because at least there were some nice close-ups of Willow's Powerbook. Product placements rock, don't they?