Jon Rubinstein, the leader of Palm, now a unit of HP (with Rubenstein serving as a Senior Vice President) is listed as number 41 in the 2010 Tech 100 list by T3.com. Last year Rubinstein was ranked at 17th, but due to the Pre not selling as well as had been expected, plus the fact that Palm barely stayed alive long enough to be snapped up by HP, meant that Rubinstein’s ranking suffered accordingly. That said, it doesn't mean that Mr. Rubinstein can't rebound next year. Palm is in position with HP to make waves in the technology world, with the PalmPad and new smartphones due early next year, plus webOS 2.0 and a variety of other devices on the way.

Rubenstein was ranked ahead of a number of well-known tech names, including Kevin Rose of Digg (#80), Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales (#59), Michael Dell (#54), and Apple designer Jonathan Ive (#50). There was also only one other HP employee on the list, CFO and interim CEO (at least until Léo Apotheker takes over on a more permanent basis) Catherine Lesjak at ninety-six on the roster. Unsurprisingly, the list was led by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, followed by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, with Google CEO Eric Schmidt sharing third-position with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Source: T3.com

Fortune has put together another list of names they want to recognize for excellence, and this time it was the smartest people in the technology industry. Executive Vice President of HP’s Personal Systems Group, and Palm chief Jon Rubinstein’s immediate supervisor, Todd Bradley grabbed the title of Smartest Executive on Fortune’s list (smartest exec is not to be confused with smartest CEO, a title unsurprisingly claimed by Apple chief Steve Jobs).

Bradley is a familiar name to Palm fans, as he was CEO of PalmOne (the hardware arm of Palm) from 2001 to 2005 during the transition to the smartphone, at which point he was recruited by Hewlett Packard CEO Mark Hurd to head up the Personal Systems Group of HP. Since taking charge of the Personal Systems Group, Bradley has taken the desktops, laptops, and mobile devices arm of HP to new heights. They’ve toppled Dell as the world’s largest and jumped to $42 billion in annual revenue with a 300% increase in profit.

Reading the tea leaves, Bradley sees the future of HP and the Personal Systems Group in the mobile ecosystem. As such, it’s ironic and humorous that as the head of the Personal Systems Group, Bradley will once again be in charge of newly-acquired subsidiary Palm, Inc.

Bradley finds himself on the list with such tech luminaries as the aforementioned Steve Jobs, Google founders Sergei Brin and Larry Page, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple designed Jonathan Ive, analyst Mike Arrington, and film-maker James Cameron (for his pioneering 3D cinema work).

Source: Fortune, Via: webOSroundup