It’s true and officially confirmed by Apple.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, has been accepted onto Apple’s board of directors, in a move that will no doubt help relations between Apple and Google. From Apple’s press release:

“Eric is obviously doing a terrific job as CEO of Google, and we look forward to his contributions as a member of Apple’s board of directors,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

“Like Apple, Google is very focused on innovation and we think Eric’s insights and experience will be very valuable in helping to guide Apple in the years ahead.”

Google have traditionally tried to be platform-independent - many of their desktop tools, including Google Earth, are available on all three major desktop platforms, including the Mac. Apple can certainly make no complaint about Google making software for their platform.

Apple also make Google the default search engine in their Safari browser, the default browser on the Mac. The companies’ relations have always been good, probably partly due to the fact that they don’t compete in many areas. But their relationship is likely to get more close with Eric on both boards.
What’s interesting now is whether we’ll see more Google-Apple cooperation and Google desktop applications coming out on the Mac faster. Maybe I’m reading too much into it now, but it could help Apple by making Google’s rich web applications have better support for Safari.

Anyway, very big news for both companies, and with Google a big competitor to Microsoft in the search arena and Apple also a competitor for computing on the desktop, I’m not sure how happy Steve Ballmer (Microsofts CEO) is about this move.

Eric’s happy, anyway.

“Apple is one of the companies in the world that I most admire,” said Eric Schmidt. “I’m really looking forward to working with Steve and Apple’s board to help with all of the amazing things Apple is doing.”

Read the whole press release.