By Graham K. Rogers

There were a lot of comments on line and on TV channels earlier today as the news about Carl Icahn's open letter to Time Cook began to circulate. The original posting about this came from Icahn himself when he Tweeted that he would be sending the open letter later in the day, an obvious ploy to make the analysts's sweat.

Those who remember the last time Icahn waved his magic fingers in the direction of Apple, may also note that in the end with the cash back schemes and other share changes, he was substantially right. As a side note, he was also on the ball when it came to E-Bay spinning off PayPal, even if it took a while for this to take place. That may also have been prompted by the catalyst of Apple rejecting PayPal as a service within the Apple Pay system. Might these two apparently separate events be related?

Apart from some obvious investments, such as TWA, that Icahn might want to forget, even if others may not want him to, Icahn has a record as an "activist" investor, making companies sit up and take notice.

Apple's own board, recently revamped, may not be in stasis, but there may be something they overlooked and Icahn may be about to remind them of this.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.