The Bottom Line On Options

More than one war has been fought over the fine points of religious dogma, and the narrowest differences in ideology have caused some of the bloodiest conflicts. These are the wars that sweep away everything in their path while the participants forget the reason they started fighting in the first place.

So it is -- minus the blood -- with the Great Options Battle. You will recall how it started, with Warren Buffett leading the charge on one side, Intel Corp.'s Andy Grove and Cisco Systems Inc.'s (CSCO ) John Chambers waving their pennants on the other, all battling over accounting rules. Lifted on a tide of anger over ever-more-outsize executive pay packages, the corporate-governance party prevailed. Now the new rules that require U.S. companies to count stock options as an expense are in effect for nearly everyone. But it turns out CEOs might well lose little or nothing. If anyone is taking a hit, it is the professionals, engineers, and managers who hoped they too could cash in on the options boom.