The New York Times has a page one story by John Markoff this morning about Google CEO and chief babysitter Eric Schmidt joining the board of Apple and what this might portend in terms of building an alternative to the Evil Empire in Redmond. 

Schmidt, who will always be remembered (by me, at least) as the guy who was against the web before he was for it, is portrayed as the ultimate Silicon Valley insider whose connections to all the power players will complement Steve Jobs’ tiresome maverick schtick. 

Barely mentioned is the fact that Schmidt has already had his ass roundly kicked by Microsoft while at Sun and later as CEO of the hapless Novell.  Of course, as the grownup of the formidable Google family, Schmidt is in a better position to challenge the Gates gang now and this step toward a strategic alliance could lead to some interesting product and service mashups.

Or, then again, it could be just another babysitting job.

Devanshu Mehta has some interesting speculation at Apple Matters.