By now the name Gray Powell is well known in the tech world. Powell is the unfortunate young man who went out for a night of drinking and ended up leaving his experimental 4th generation iPhone at the bar.

We all know what happened next - the phone was found and eventually sold off to gadget blog Gizmodo for $5,000. In the aftermath, Powell has become something of an unfortunate celebrity and a cautionary tale to tech giants worldwide.

Everyone from Powell's family to V3.co.uk sister site The INQUIRER to the blog that bought the lost phone have come out in his defence and lobbied Apple to spare him his job. CBS even went so far as to label him a "cult hero".

While I deeply sympathise with Mr Powell and wish him and his family the best, I have to say that's complete bunk. From a business point of view he absolutely should be fired.

The fact is that his carelessness put tens of millions of dollars of Apple research and development at risk. There is absolutely no excuse for that.

Sure, most all of us have lost a phone, or wallet, or set of keys somewhere, particularly after a night at the bar. But we don't do it with a highly valuable prototype of one of the most sought-after gadgets on the planet.

Imagine for a moment what could have happened if the person who discovered the lost iPhone had instead decided to sell it to someone like Google or Palm or a shady knock-off phone builder. The consequences for Apple could have been devastating.

Imagine if someone at Barclay's got hammered and left a file on the table outlining the company's future investment plans. Or if a Mercedes engineer had a late night and left a concept car sitting out in front of company headquarters. Instant termination, right? Heck, I know that if I staggered home from the bar, logged into my computer and changed the top articles on V3.co.uk to dirty limericks I would be heading straight to the unemployment office as soon as my hangover subsided.

So it didn't turn into a huge loss for the company and in the end people had a good chuckle. But from Apple's standpoint it is no laughing matter, and should be cause for a serious re-think of how its devices are tested.

Again, I hope Gray Powell learns a valuable lesson and goes on to big things at Apple or elsewhere in his career. But if I'm down on Infinite Loop handling this matter, the guy was fired a week ago.