Rubinstein, who revitalized Palm, leaves HP
Jon Rubinstein, the former Apple executive who spearheaded engineering for the iPod, and then proceeded to revitalize Palm, has officially left Hewlett-Packard, the company confirmed today.
The news isn鈥檛 entirely unexpected. Rubinstein was reportedly a no-show at HP since former CEO Leo Apotheker听. Even before that his role at HP was reduced with a change to a vague 鈥淪VP of innovation鈥� title.
An HP spokesperson听, which first reported the news about Rubinstein鈥檚 departure, that 鈥淛on has fulfilled his commitment and we wish him well.鈥� Rubinstein confirmed that he only agreed to stick around HP for 12 to 24 months after it acquired Palm, in听.
Speaking to the Verge鈥檚 Joshua Topolsky, Rubinstein deftly avoided chatting about where Palm went wrong or complaining about Apotheker鈥檚 treatment of webOS:
We built an amazing OS in webOS. It鈥檚 very advanced, it鈥檚 where things are going. But we ran out of runway, and we ended up at HP and HP wasn鈥檛 in good enough shape on its own to be able to support the effort. I had four CEOs! Mark acquired us, Les Jackson took over as the interim CEO, then Leo, and now Meg.
Now Rubinstein, seemingly going full circle, is taking a much-deserved break in Mexico, where the Palm folks initially tapped him to help save the company in 2007. He admitted that he鈥檚 still carrying a tiny webOS-powered Veer, and that he hopes to get back into the mobile world in some fashion.
鈥淚 think the future is mobile,鈥� Rubinstein told the Verge. 鈥淥bviously there鈥檚 going to be stuff that comes post mobile, there鈥檒l be a next wave. It could very well be home integration, but mobile鈥檚 going to continue to be really important. But I have no idea what I鈥檓 going to do next. I haven鈥檛 spent a minute thinking about it.鈥�
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