Welcome to Point Counter Point, wherein Derek vents his spleen like the dour misanthrope we’ve all come to know and love, Dieter consoles us all with rainbows and unicorns, and the truth lies – as it always does – somewhere in the middle.
Today’s topic: What to make of all the pie-in-the-sky future talk we are hearing from HP instead of actual product announcements.
HP won the bidding war, but Business Insider is filling out the details of from that intriguing SEC filing that suggested plenty of players were interested in purchasing the company. The named players: Apple, RIM, and Google.
On Apple, Dan Frommer reports:
Apple was mostly interested in Palm’s huge library of intellectual property and patents [...] Apple even seemed committed to funding Palm’s operations, perhaps to challenge RIM’s dominance in the keyboarded segment of the smartphone industry, our source says.
That latter portion seems, well, kind of crazy to us. More believable is that RIM was also in the running – it’s a synergy our pal CrackBerry Kevin thought would be a great idea some time ago – RIM has an aging OS, though BlackBerry OS 6 looks to turn that tide. Google was apparently not as seriously interested.
In all, we’re pretty happy with how things turned out, as HP looks to be letting Palm act as a fairly independent subsidiary.
Source: Business Insider; Thanks to everybody who sent this in!
We already noted HP CTO Phil McKinney’s welcome to the webOS community, but as promised McKinney has updated the post with a link to the above discussion with two guys that Palm fans know well, Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer.
The three chat about McKinney’s place in HP, HP’s interest in Palm, and more. Oh, the chuckles about smartphones being a "sideshow:" "Our interest is in the phone business, no if, ands, buts about it."
McKinney also mentions slates and "other form factors," which could be taken as yet another hint at webOS netbooks. We also like the talk about HP’s scale and how they intend to put that behind webOS – in particular their strength outside the US. On slates: "We think webOS on a slate could be an amazing kind of experience."
Get this: HP has an event called TechCon and McKinney offered free phones to HP engineers who build webOS apps (many of which our readers have already seen begin to pop up in the Beta feeds).
Last but not least, here’s the brief synopsis of what is going to happen to Palm as a business unit: "Palm will become the seat of innovation for global mobile platforms. Our intent is to leave Palm as is. [...] Don’t mangle up Palm kind of philsophy." Palm will be an "autonomous unit" within HP but able to take advantage of the resources at HP.
HP’s Phil McKinney has written a welcome letter to the Palms employees who are now HP employees:
Today, we’re excited to welcome the Palm team and its community of customers, developers and enthusiasts into the HP family. [...]
For me, what’s equally exciting is the Palm team itself. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to personally meet a number of Palm employees, and I’ve been impressed with their passion for innovation, vision for the future and commitment to growing with HP.
I’ve also heard great stories about the Palm community’s enthusiasm. And I recently met with Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer from the Palm Developer Relations Team to discuss the opportunities that lie ahead for WebOS developers.
McKinney says howdy, everybody – say howdy back, he’s up on Twitter here: @philmckinney. While you’re adding new places to follow, here are some more:
Tell ‘em PreCentral sent ya!
Here’s another name to add to the growing list in of Palm employees heading out, pre-acquisition: Jeff Finkelstein, Sr Product Manager of Multimedia. Finkelstien, whose awarded patents while at Palm include "Data Synchronization to and from removable memory on a handheld device" and "Method and apparatus for power management" left Palm at the end of may after a 7 year stint to join UStream as Director of Product Management. If you haven’t been keeping track, other recent big name departures include SVP of Software and Services Mike Abbot, VP of Human Interface and User Experience Matias Duarte, Rich Dellinger (who created webOS’ glorious notification system) and VP of PR, Lynn Fox.
All of these high-level departures could certainly be cause for alarm, but if Palm’s CEO and soon to be head of HP’s smartphone/mobility unit Jon Rubinstien could build such a high caliber team before at Palm (and before that at Apple), I suspect that he’s capable of doing it again.
Source: LinkedIn; Thanks to Brian for the tip!
TechCrunch is reporting that Lynn Fox, Vice President of Public Relations for Palm, left the company earlier this week. Fox’s Facebook page pretty much confirms the same:
I respectfully declined the opportunity to join HP after its acquisition of Palm, so am looking for my next career adventure. I have some exciting potential opportunities in the works, but in the meantime, I will help you help yourselves, to the extent that you need or want such help….from me. Inquire within.
Fox is among several big names to have left Palm since the HP acquisition announcement, including SVP of Software and Services Mike Abbott, VP of Humant Interface and User Experience Matías Duarte, and Rich Dellinger, creator of webOS’ notification system.
Fox came to Palm after a stint at Apple. She was a major asset to Palm and friendly to one and all – and while the former may no longer be true, we know that the latter is now and will be in the future. Best of luck @foxycar!
Source: TechCrunch
Palm has just filed an 8-K report with the SEC:
At a special stockholder meeting held June 25, 2010, the stockholders of Palm, Inc. (“Palm”) approved the Agreement and Plan of Merger dated April 28, 2010 among Palm, District Acquisition Corporation and Hewlett-Packard Company (“HP”). Such approval occurred by way of the affirmative vote of a majority of the (i) holders of the outstanding shares of Palm common stock, Series B preferred stock and Series C preferred stock at the close of business on the record date, May 24, 2010, voting together as a single class on an as-converted basis, and (ii) holders of the outstanding shares of Palm common stock not beneficially owned by Elevation Partners, L.P., or its affiliates.
The transaction is expected to close on Wednesday, July 1, 2010.
In other words: t’s officially official. Palm has five more days as an independent company, then they will become an arm of HP headed by current CEO Jon Rubinstein.
If you’ve got bubbly, it’s now time to break it out!
Source: SEC Filing
Today, Palm held their Shareholder meeting to approve the pending ‘merger’ with HP. Jakerome in our forums went there this morning and offers the following notes based on a conversation with Teri Klein, VP of Investor Relations at Palm:
Jake also reports that Klein was especially enthusiastic about great things that are coming. If anybody else attended the meeting, please let us know what you’ve learned!
[article updated with more information from sbono13 to reflect the more general nature of the comments.]
Source: PreCentral Forums. Thanks, Jake!
As Palm heads towards its acquisition by HP, we can expect plenty of the team to leave the company and head for other pastures. The latest is David Temkin, the VP for the Developer Platform at Palm. PaidContent reports that Temkin is leaving to head mobile for AOL, "working very closely with all of the strategy groups to drive [AOL's] Mobile platform and product experiences globally." That quote comes from an internal AOL memo from Temkin’s new boss, Brad Garlinghouse.
Temkin joined Palm in October 2009; he writes that his role included "Leading the team responsible for the webOS app catalog, SDK, developer tools, and portal." Temkin was also formerly the founder and CEO of Lazlo Systems
Other employees who have recently left Palm include Matias Duarte (to Google), Mike Abbot (to Twitter), and Rich Dellinger (to Apple). We’re the furthest thing from corporate takeover specialists, but as with the previous exoduses we’re not thinking this is anything beyond the normal churn that happens during these kinds of events.
Source: PaidContent and LinkedIn; Thanks to Jason for the tip!
“If we don’t talk about it, they’ll forget we ever mentioned it…” Or at least that seems to be the attitude that HP has been displaying towards the Windows 7-powered Slate tablet they unveiled six months ago at CES. Harry McCracken of Technologizer spoke to HP Personal Systems Group CTO Phil McKinney about their tablet plans, and the HP exec said that he wouldn’t be commenting about unreleased tablet products until the Palm acquisition was complete. And then he went on to extol the virtues of webOS over trying to adapt existing operating systems for new uses (Windows 7 onto a tablet).
This “not talking about the Slate” is a major departure for HP, as the device was shown off on stage by none other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and featured in several videos on HP’s site. Including one with McKinney. Since then, as Engadget notes, HP has been eerily quiet – breaking out only to put a damper on rumors that the Slate would run webOS: "Don’t believe everything you see online."
So, is Slate dead and to be succeeded by a webOS-powered tablet, perhaps something codenamed Hurricane? That wouldn’t surprise us, though we doubt we’ll know for sure until sometime after the Palm acquisition is wrapped up on July 31st. If Palm and HP really are on an aggressive, 2010 schedule to release a webOS Tablet, let’s hope that they started working to make webOS Tablet-ready quite awhile ago.
Via: Engadget, Source: Technologizer