Companies don’t change the wording of important regulatory disclosures without some pretty serious soul-searching by the lawyers. So Apple’s amendments today to earlier disclosures about Steve Jobs’ involvement in options backdating amount to a glaring change of stance.

This is the key sentence from Apple’s regulatory filing on October 4th:

In a few instances, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was aware that favorable grant dates had been selected, but he did not receive or otherwise benefit from these grants and was unaware of the accounting implications.

This is the new version of that sentence:

Although the investigation found that CEO Steve Jobs was aware or recommended the selection of some favorable grant dates, he did not receive or financially benefit from these grants or appreciate the accounting implications.

Let’s see now…

1. It turns out Jobs wasn’t only aware of some of the backdating, he "recommended" it.

2. Before, he was said to be "unaware" of the accounting implications: now, he simply did not "appreciate" them.

3. Before, he did not "benefit" from backdated options: now, he did not not "financially benefit." Is this a reference to the fact that, though he never exercised his backdated options and surrendered them two years later, he at least received a notional benefit when they were first issued?

4. Before, Jobs was aware "in a few instances": now, his involvement extends to "some favourable grant dates". How many, and why the change of wording?

Wall Street’s sigh of relief today suggests it believes Jobs’ position is now secure. But in the famous words of former senator Howard Baker during the Watergate hearings: "What did the president know, and when did he know it?"

Despite the hand-wringing from the venture capital crowd, it seems 2006 wasn’t such a disastrous year after all.

It was only a couple of months ago that the National Venture Capital Association in the US was issuing dark warnings about the threat to start-up technology companies from waning public market interest in IPOs. That added spice to a debate that has been getting plenty of airtime recently: whether the venture capital model, as practised in Silicon Valley, is somehow "broken."

Well, at least the IPO part of the model seems to be working just fine. Thanks to a late spurt of deals, 2006 turned out to be a pretty good year. These are the numbers from Renaissance Capital (covering both tech and non-tech deals):

The top performing IPO of the year, according to Renaissance: Riverbed Technology, with a gain of more than 200 per cent since it went public in September. The company, which makes storage for wide area networks, was backed early on by Accel and Lightspeed, with UV Partners and Goldman Sachs taking part in later rounds.

We’re down to the final four in our Tech Grinch list of the things you won’t be able to buy this Christmas:

4. TMX Elmo – the irritating orange furry thing that rolls on the floor chuckling has its maker laughing all the way to the bank for this tenth anniversary year. TMX stands for Tickle Me Ten or Tickle Me Xtreme as Fisher-Price has increased its robotic ability far beyond what this gargalesis victim could muster back in 1996. We were able to find a version today at the $40 list price that chortles in Spanish, but all English ones were either unavailable or ridiculously overpriced.

Other favourite tech toys this season have been Leapfrog’s FLY Pentop computer and an indoor helicopter we first saw demo’d at the Consumer Electronics Show back in January.

The countdown so far:

10. An Enzo Ferrari   9. Halo 3  8. The $100 Laptop 7. The iPod wannabes 6. Pleo the dinosaur

5. If I Did It