Citing “personal reasons,” the Symbian Foundation has just announced that executive director Lee Williams has left the company — yes, “left,” as in he’s not going to stick around for a while to manage a transition. Williams has been steeped in Symbian for some time, having previously led Nokia’s S60 business — but the dude’s been floating around the upper ranks of the entire mobile industry for ages, doing time with Motorola (through its Symbol acquisition) and Palm / PalmSource by way of Be. He’s been replaced by the organization’s reigning CFO, Tim Holbrow, and it appears that the appointment is permanent; what this means for Symbian’s roadmap (if anything) is unclear, but we’d love to hear the backstory on what led to this power shift
And just like that, the rumor mill smirks. HP has just come clean with a device that we’ve been hearing more and more about over the past few weeks, and with it will come the next generation of webOS that we’ve been hearing about for even longer
It’s unclear if the tiny, little shot posted on French carrier SFR’s Club SFR pour Palm blog is in fact the rumored upcoming Pre 2 or just an old Pre shot, but let’s put it this way: considering that we can’t readily tell the difference, it better be an old one. At any rate, the sparse details in the blog post line up with everything we’re expecting so far, namely that the new model will use a 1GHz processor — presumably a TI OMAP3630 — and will sport a full half gig of RAM on board.
Okay, we know what you’re saying: why would a Europe-bound device be getting FCC certification?
Palm first started telling us webOS 1.4.5 was coming “soon” back in May , but after an interminable wait it looks like Pre Pluses on Verizon and AT&T are starting to get an OTA update. The release notes page on Palm’s site is currently down, but we’re looking for better PDK support, some GPS fixes, and improved gaming action.
HP’s Jon Rubinstein — formerly of Palm CEO fame, of course — just mentioned in an interview with Fortune that webOS 2.0 is on track for “later this year.” Considering that 2010 is more than half over, that doesn’t leave a whole heck of a lot of time — but with a mix of presumed kick-ass HP hardware in the pipeline running webOS, we imagine this should all dovetail nicely. On a related note, Rubinstein again drove home the point that they’re developing new hardware “aggressively,” so let’s hope we finally see a Pre 2, a Palmpad , or heck, a frickin’ LifeDrive 2 in the next few months. webOS 2.0 coming ‘later this year,’ says HP’s Rubinstein originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:40:00 EST
It’s not totally unexpected, but apparently HP is laying off some Palm staffers now that the buyout is official . We don’t know exactly how many people are being let go, or in what departments — it certainly makes sense for HP to trim away some administrative and support positions as it intregrates Palm into its larger organization — but there’s no question that Palm’s lost some key people ever since this turmoil began, and we’re definitely curious to see who’s left standing after these cuts. For what it’s worth, Palm told All Things Digital that “part of the integration strategy is consolidation of functions and operations, as appropriate,” and that “Palm employees overall are enthusiastic about having the financial stability and global scale necessary to complete their vision,” so we’ve got hope — after all, HP needs Palm just as much as Palm needs HP
It’s only been a couple short months since HP announced its intentions to buy Palm , but apparently all the investors are happy and the lawyers are rich, because the two companies have just announced that the $1.2b transaction is official and the buyout is complete — Palm is now part of HP. Yes, it’s the end of an era — Palm’s been a part of the tech landscape in one confounding way or another since 1992 — but it’s also the start of what could potentially be a webOS renaissance , as HP plans to use Palm’s ideas and OS on everything from smartphones ( phew ) to tablets to even printers
We’d heard rumors this morning that webOS design guru Matias Duarte had left Palm for Google , but now we’ve got it straight from Mountain View: Mr. Duarte is the new User Experience Director for Android.
AT&T has finally sent out the rundown on when (and for how much) its customers will be able to saddle themselves with a Pre Plus and matching two-year contract, and the wait isn’t a long one: it launches this coming Sunday, May 16, just as we’d expected .
HP has just announced that it’s acquiring Palm to the tune of $1.2 billion, which works out to $5.70 per share of Palm common stock. The deal is expected to close by July 31.
Don’t tell us we didn’t try. In spite of all our pleading for HTC to acquire the troubled Palm, Inc.
In the face of a near-constant stream of buyout rumors the past couple weeks, Palm boss Jon Rubinstein is holding the line he’s held ever since he’s taken the helm — well most of the line, anyway. In a chat with Financial Times today, the CEO said that he still believes that “Palm can survive as an independent company” and that he’s got a plan to get the company spitting black ink rather than red, but that “if someone comes to the board with a reasonable offer of course it’s something [they'd] have to consider,” which isn’t anything materially different than he’s said in the past — it’s just good business sense, and it’s a very cautiously-worded soundbite
No one really knows exactly what’s going on inside the walls of Palm HQ this week — whether the company will sink or swim is perhaps a bigger question right now than it has been since its rebirth last year, and if it does swim, whether it remains independent is another matter altogether.
According to a little late night tweet from Palm — and the update screen on our device — the stacked new webOS 1.4 update is making its way out into the world for the company’s Verizon-flavored devices. That’s right, Plussers — video recording (and editing) is just a small download away
