Rumor: Palm considering ditching Rubinstein

By on Apr 23, 2010 at 6:17 PM
General April 23, 2010

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Take this with the usual grain of salt, but according to TechCrunch’s sources, Palm is about to undergo a huge shake-up and CEO John Rubinstein might just get the axe. Rubinstein became the CEO of Palm in October of 2007 after leaving his job with Apple as the senior VP of the iPod devision. The problem is that Rubinstein and his team have simply been unable to move its webOS devices ,with carriers practically giving them away and retailers turning their backs on them. With its debt mounting day by day and potential suitors dropping like flies, it seems to us Palm would be wise to lose some of its dead weight in an effort to make itself more attractive to buyers. You know, like maybe take on a CEO with a business degree?

Palm has not yet responded to calls for comments.

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  • emaan1

    About time! He should remain on as CTO….but not CEO. Designing applications and selling a product line are not the same. WebOS has potential….but someone has to sell it.

  • Electrofreak

    Hah, probably because the guy keeps saying that Palm can still be economically viable, while everyone else on te planet seems to know that they’re a sinking ship right now…

  • Vik

    thats a great rumor to drop the stock price and then BAM they announce new hardware. i have no idea i’m just kidding…but seriously…

  • Mik

    Without a hardware intervention by someone big, Palm’s worm food.

    The sun set on a bigger empire, it’ll set on this one too.

  • davesmall

    I have the utmost respect for Jon Rubinstein based on his work at Apple and at Palm. Before Jon arrived Palm looked like a ripening cadaver. He brought in a great team and produced a very credible product.

    Giving it to Sprint exclusively was a bit of a stretch. And Verizon must have cut a sweeter deal with Motorola because they pushed the Droid over Palm.

    Don’t count Jon out just yet. He’s faced with some big problems but wouldn’t surprise me if he finds his way out of the swamp.

    On the other hand, I see Apple as the big winner in the smart phone competition. Jon’s Palm may end up in the same leaky boat with Motorola, HTC, Microsoft, Nokia, RIM, and Google.

    • LostPlatypus

      Are you an effing moron? Same leaking boat?? HTC doesn’t appear to be in a leaking boat. Nothing has come of this lawsuit, so if that is your basis for throwing HTC into a leaking boat, it is invalid. Apple entered this arena before Google, so Apple isn’t really taking anything away from Google here. If anything, Google is taking market share from Apple. I do agree that RIM, Nokia, and Microsoft are losing market share to Apple though.

      As for everything else you stated in your comment, I agree. thanks and have a great day.

      • mrsilkunderwear

        Did you really have to call him a moron?

  • MikeD

    Launching on Sprint instead of Verizon or AT&T was a big blunder. The hardware was an even bigger blunder.

    Yeah, I think its about time they try a new person at the CEO position.

    • bonesb

      Not getting a GSM/WCDMA version out for the rest of the world right away was a couple of nails in their coffin, which is being lowered in the hole…

      • Michael K

        Exactly! the USA is a fragmented market, and without a major push to the rest of the (GSM/WCDMA) world, they’re doomed to fail. I remember when Qualcomm made phones, ugh. Palm has great technology, pathetic biz dev and marketing! I’m waiting in great anticipation for a major player to pick them up …

  • Ken

    Is it just me or does Rubinstein look like Kevin Cronin from REO Speedwagon?

  • Gauntlet Down

    BGR forgot to add that the VP of Carrier and Channel Marketing is also leaving – she’s a long-time Palm veteran (I read “14 years” somewhere).

  • Harold42483

    @rboatright is in the next room over from us at Palm’s developer day and he reports that Rubinstein himself just quipped “I’m still here” to lots of laffs. Move along, everybody.

  • palmjuice

    Palm screwed up in too many ways to fix it now.
    Pre was good stuff when it came out, there were no 1Ghz snapdragons on the market, but they gave an exclusive deal to sprint for WAY too long. stupid.
    Then they thought, Lets be like Apple and only have ONE oiece if hardware. But they didn’t have an app store like iTunes to back that up. (even though they tried to mooch from iTunes only to be broken with each update)
    If the CEO gets the axe it because of decisions like this….

  • http://doubletwist Ted

    Agree. Gave It to sprint for too long. Knocking off their most confident cheerleader isn’t going to help

  • user

    I’m still eager to try WebOS one day.

    I think Palm are just under a deluge of negative talk and it’s easy to join in but from what I can tell they do need better hardware (more reliable hardware), from what I have been hearing.

    I’m still hanging out for something with a MicroSD slot.

  • Mike W

    I think it’s pretty ridiculous to expect an immediate turn around. Shaking up the marketing department makes sense. Kicking Rubinstein out doesn’t.

    Considering his very limited resources, they successfully brought an OS from nothing to top tier in a very short time period. It helped stop some of the bleeding and they have held true on promises and been constantly iterating the software.

    The lengthy Sprint commitment may have just been a necessary evil to help kick start the “new Palm” and provide the financial resources. It probably wasn’t worth it in hindsight, but given the (relatively) small development team and financial situation Palm has positioned themselves for the “10 or 15 year race” as has been their plan. Long story short, of course Palm’s not profitable right now but considering where they were two or three years ago they have made remarkable progress and simply need to survive until their hard work can truly bear fruit. That may come in licensing to HTC, or a purchase, or something else… but it’s absurd how quickly the blogosphere goes from one extreme to the other praising/ranting about Palm.

    Tomorrow if the C40 comes out and it’s an HTC EVO-esque device running WebOS all of these bloggers will be posting like they did in January 2009. There is some amazing talent there right now. Calm down and let Palm be Palm.

    • Bob

      10-15 year race?

      lmao, Must be some big assed war chest of money they have, perhaps pixie dust is going to save this wreck!!

      The writing’s, on the wall, they don’t have no war chest, and are a fleeting glimpse of what was Palm.

      Even if the hardware of the next phone, say it came out tomorrow, would not save Palm
      It has to get to carriers, be made known about in light of Dell, HTC and the iphone newest products and sell better then them.

      Pretty tall order, though not if your dreaming.

  • Dvdbones

    Amen, Mike W…Amen… webOS is too viable a platform to fade off into the sunset. The internal support since last summer’s launch has been rock solid with advancement in stability and overall feature. I think people shouldn’t get so caught up in the “what if” mindest and look at what a robust platform webOS truly is. 1.4.1.1 makes the device what it should’ve ben out of the box and it was awesome then anyhow! Fast, intuitive, and a breeze to manipulate through. Early hardware issues aside for those that had ‘em, I look forward to the next iteration of the platform as soon as it’s announced.

  • David

    He needs to re-retire back to his beach home in Mexico.

  • jayrkz

    WebOS is a great platform but Palm only offered two devices and didn’t give it to all Carriers. With Android, which I love personally, gaining momentum with new versions and devices it looks like WebOS is going to dissipate unless they produce a groundbreaking phone and offer it to all the Major Carriers

  • strider_mt2k

    Palm is trailing smoke from it’s engines!

    See the little golden parachutes unfurl one by one, taking the last of the money with them.

    The only question is where this flaming wreckage will be coming to rest?

  • young

    this is a lie.. BGR why don’t you update your threads Jon himself address this stupid rumor asap.

  • ceaser

    as confermed that same day rub tweeted to the palm community that is was just a joke, a bad one but yes hes still there.

  • ceaser

    wow Mike I couldnt have said it better, you need to be on the board at Palm to help explain to the massess on what it takes to be profiatable dosent happen overnight.

  • Shotinthenads

    He ran the company into the ground. See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya.

  • RYAN_OMG

    FUNNY that just last week some BGR fanboys were saying palm was going strong with the best OS in the game. And now HTC won’t even by them and that was their last roll of the dice. I love when idiots think that because THEY have that phone, the company MUST be doing well.

    palm has had it’s rise and fall. it was a good run.

    • user

      I’d rather hear more device talk than ‘business is bad’ talk, personally.

      At least some guys here are talking about the product (if what you say is true) rather than mouthing off about something they know nothing about but are all-too-eager to bag – Palm employees included.

  • CJ

    Ditch the one guy responsible for your company even surviving past 08…what a bunch of asshats. Palm may have been an innovator in the past but the old dog needs to be shot.

  • Matt

    Hey lets release a cheap plastic feeling phone with a small ass screen, shitty keyboard, and horrendous marketing campaign. What exactly did they expect to happen?

    Apparently nobody at Palm has a clue what most consumers want. Nice big screens with decent hardware.

  • VZWsalesguy

    Just for the record from a VZW employee: We are paid no different on sale of palms vs droids. In fact we are not pushed one way or the other. The sad truth is that more people are interested in Android phones right now. The only PALM phones we have sold at all in the last month are due to VZW offering the mobile hotspot feature free of charge for the length of the contract, and even then we are selling it in place of an aircard, not in place of a Droid.

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