Ex-Apple VP works to overhaul Palm
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Dec 13, 2007 at 2:40pm
Jon Rubinstein, Apple’s former vice president of hardware engineering, is trying revive a “wilting” Palm, according to the Wall Street Journal (you’ll need a subscription to view the entire article). The company hired 51-year-old Rubinstein to help turn it around.
Although he officially joined Palm in October, he’s been on-site since July and putting in 70-hour weeks, say people familiar with the matter. Alongside Chief Executive Ed Colligan, he has cleaned up the company’s product plans, overhauled its engineering staff, and made several strategic new hires, according to the Journal.
Rubinstein now faces numerous challenges at Palm, the article adds. Last week, Palm warned it would miss estimates when it next reports earnings on Tuesday, sending its stock plunging. Yesterday, Palm made some reassignments and staff reductions.
Since it typically takes at least 18 months to develop new phones from scratch, it may take years for Rubinstein’s impact to show up, according to the Journal. “With the business smart-phone market dominated by RIM and the personal smart-phone market dominated by Apple, it’s hard to say where Palm’s opportunity is,” says Andy Neff, an analyst at the Bear Stearns & Company firm.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
