After being off the press radar since before the acquisition by HP, former CEO turned GM of Palm Jon Rubinstein is set to appear for the first time in a talk with HP’s Todd Bradly.   The session begins tomorrow at 3PM at Brainstorm Tech (where in-person registration will set you back a cool $3500) where the topic will undoubtedly be Palm and webOS, and HP has invited you to join in on the web feed for free by using coupon code BTVTWT at the event’s website.

Will we see a product announcement or any insight into the company’s roadmap?  If recent presentations at other tech conferences are any indication, probably not, but it’ll be great to see one of the catalysts behind webOS’s presence in the market place back in action.

Via: @hpnews

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Our friends over at Engadget were able to get on the horn with Brian Humphries, HP VP of Strategy and Corporate Development, and Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, and they had a pretty positive picture painted for them. According to their chat, HP plans to be “doubling down on webOS,” which Engadget confirmed with Rubinstein, saying “that was the whole point.” webOS is our singular most favorite part of Palm and the part we worried most about with the HP merger. Additionally, Rubinstein and most of the Palm executive staff will be staying on board, so for now it seems like Palm will continue to be Palm, but with the assets of the world’s largest technology company behind them.

So what will HP be doing with Palm and the “prized asset” that is webOS? Engadget was told that they intend to scale the OS “across multiple connected devices.” Tablets, anyone? Additionally, Rubinstein believes that HP wouldn’t be taking Palm and webOS “unless they were willing to make the kind of investment necessary to win.” Considering that HP is currently nowhere near winning in the smartphone marketplace (the lone smartphone OS they use, Windows Mobile 6.5, is due to die a slow painful death), the purchase of Palm isn’t just for IP considerations.

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Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein has really been making the press rounds these days.  We’ve seen him interviewed on CNN Money and German blog zeit.de amongst others, and this time around SlashGear was lucky enough to be able to sit down with the man for a brief interview.

There’s really nothing here that hasn’t been touched on in the previous interviews mentioned above – the usual questions about upcoming hardware, software, and behind-the-doors business goings on are met with the usual responses.  Also discussed are the lessons that Palm has learned from its launch with Verizon, Palm’s focus on expanding in Europe, the mobile advertising space and the prospects of licensing webOS (an idea the company isn’t "religious about" - a stance they’ve had since last year).

Still, interesting that Ruby is out there chatting Palm up when you might think the upper Palm echelons would be hunkered down – seems like webOS lovers should take it as a good sign.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ short email responses to customer inquiries have both revealed both new information and a glimpse into the mindset of the head of one of the world’s most influential technology companies. But what of Jon Rubinstein, former Apple exec and current CEO of underdog Palm? Yeah, he’ll reply to random unsolicited email too, with a plethora of exclamation points to boot. But useful insights into Palm products or strategy? Nope, that’s not coming from Jon. As with his carefully calculated replies during financial conference calls, Rubinstein’s also coy in revealing anything new or exciting from his perch in Sunnyvale. Email!!!

[via: Gizmodo]

UPDATE: For all who are doubting Gizmodo’s authenticity, we present a second email from Jon Rubinstein, this time to PreCentral reader SP. This email too, was about the above-emailed ad, and Rubinstein apparently thought it worth pointing out Palm’s ad which clearly inspired the fan-made one (- SP lets us know he was referring to a different ad.) And he was sure to include plenty of exclamation points and a bit of non-capitalization. Though, for all we know, maybe he does go by "jon." Email after the break!!!

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Palm has announced their fiscal results for Q3 2010, and in short, it’s not pretty.

Revenue was reported at a $349.9 million, though these are GAAP-adjusted numbers (GAAP accounting defers revenue over the expected service life of the device: 2 years). From a non-GAAP perspective, Palm brought in $366 million in the most recent quarter. Profit-wise, Palm netted a gross profit of $47 million (non-GAAP: $63.5 million). Accounting profits aside, Palm still managed to spend more than they brought in, burning through an additional $22 million this past quarter. Non-GAAP losses: $102.8 million, compared to $45.5 million the previous quarter. Palm ended Q3 FY 2010 with $591.9 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term assets.

The previous quarter Palm brought in $78.1 million (non-GAAP: $302 million) with a gross profit of $5.5 million ($77.3 million). After other expenses, Palm still managed to burn through $85 million cash during the prior quarter. At the very least, Palm has managed to slow the drain rate from their coffers, but as with any company they can only burn cash for so long.

For Q3 FY2010, Palm shipped 960,000 devices, and increase of 23% over the previous quarter, with sell-through numbers of 408,000. In short, selling fewer than half as many units as you ship is not a good position to be in. Also, selling fewer devices the quarter you launch your newest devices onto the biggest network yet is also not a good thing. No breakdown by device or carrier was provided, as is customary for Palm’s quarterly reports. During Q2, Palm shipped 783,000, with sales of 573,000 units.

Obviously, Palm’s expectations for this quarter were higher. As said by CEO Jon Rubinstein:

“Our recent underperformance has been very disappointing, but the potential for Palm remains strong. The work we’re doing to improve sales is having an impact, we’re making great progress on future products, and we’re looking forward to upcoming launches with new carrier partners. Most importantly, we have built a unique and highly differentiated platform in webOS, which will provide us with a considerable – and growing – advantage as we move forward.”

The full Q3 FY2010 report is after the break.

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After Palm reported to Wall Street that sales performance of their new webOS-based smartphones was far below original expectations, CEO Jon Rubinstein sent an email to all Palm employees explaining in more detail the reasons for their disappointing financial results and the steps the company is taking to right the ship. Below is the text [...]

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While the ranks of Palm are filling with more and more former Apple folk, with CEO Jon Rubinstein at the top, investment firm Elevation Partners is also busy picking up Apple people. While Elevation Partners isn’t in direct control of Palm, they do own 1/3 of the company and have invested a few hundred million dollars into Palm. Adding to Elevation’s board is former Apple chief software engineer Avie Tevanian. While at Apple, Tevanian was the head of Mac OS X development. Despite his pedigree, we aren’t expecting too much from Tevanian as far as Palm is concerned, as when he comes to Elevation he’ll be a managing director in charge of seeking out new investment opportunities for the firm.

[via: CNET]

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A few months ago we were laughing at/with Palm investor Roger McNamee after his All Things D interview with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. And this year at CES, Palm saw fit to send just CEO Jon Rubinstein into the gauntlet, and even in the face of what some may call some rather nonsensical and unnecessarily combative and prying questioning from Swisher alone, he held up well. Sure, Swisher wanted to know what’s coming next, but Rubinstein would have nothing of it and refused to divulge any new details. That said, there were still some interesting things to take away from the interview, like Rubinstein’s admission of having never used an iPhone.

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Investment firm Elevation Partners has invested some $460 million into this little company called Palm. Today, that investment has gained around 54% for the firm, and at one time had nearly tripled in value (though has since dropped considerably). So with a gain of around $250 million on the table, now would seem like a good time to take some profits, eh?

Not so, Elevation co-founder Fred Anderson said to Bloomberg, “We haven’t taken money off the table because we see a huge market opportunity here. This is a marathon.”

Given the number of changes that Elevation’s partners have instituted in Palm, from installing Jon Rubinstein as Chairman (and he guided us to the bright land of webOS) to eventually moving him in place as CEO once Ed Colligan retired. Anderson himself even serves on Palm’s board. But what future does Elevation Partners see in Palm? It’s not a takeover, as that potential does not factor into their business model (though it does factor into Palm’s stock price, and thus the value of Elevation’s investment).

What Elevation Partners sees in Palm is expansion, and we expect to see plenty of that later today at CES. At the very least, Palm will announce their partnership with Verizon, and they may even talk some about AT&T and some international carriers. Most of us here will agree that the Pre and Pixi are excellent devices, but whether or not Sprint is excellent service is another question entirely. Expanding Palm’s distribution channels, and eventually the product line, will be the key to growing Elevation Partner’s investment. And that truly is a long-term strategy.

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Over what the Palm Pre has right now, this sucker’s got a front-facing camera in addition to the one with flash on the back, dual SIM card slots, Java functions, a full QWERT keyboard, FM radio with recording, analog TV, eBook support, handwriting input, and a 3800 mAh battery.

And that’s just the stuff we’ve heard of before, it also comes with revolutionary technology like a gravity inducer, something amazing called “Magic Voice,” a TransFlash card slot supporting up to 8 GB, handshaking function (to avoid H1N1 transmission, we presume), a ‘spotwatch,’ and four common games. That last bit has our minds thoroughly blown: we always put four common games at the top of our must-have list. Strangely, Touchstone support seems to be missing, as is webOS; it must be some sort of marketing mix-up (like a Sprint Pixi with Wi-Fi)

We know, you’re sincerely hoping that this is what Jon Rubinstein is going to pull out of his pocket on stage come Thursday. Want one now? The Cool K07 can be yours for a cool $128, with bulk pricing available if you want to buy one for all your cool friends too.

[via: Engadget]

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