Jon Rubinstein was a former Apple executive that became the CEO of Palm. Rubinstein oversaw Palm’s acquisition by HP. Rubinstein has stepped down from HP effective today, but he does not have any immediate plans. He had completed a 12-24 month commitment to stay with HP after the acquisition.

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) has made some major product announcements today. They announced a new tablet called the TouchPad, a new webOS phone called the Veer, and the Pre 3:
The TouchPad is a 9.7-inch screen with a front 1.3 megapixel camera. It has 16 and 32GB models and runs on a 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor. The resolution is 1024×768. The TouchPad supports multi-tasking, Adobe Flash, Quickoffice, Google Docs, Dropbox, Box.net, and HP Wireless Printer support.

Jon Rubinstein was the CEO of Palm Inc. before the company was bought out by Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ). Rubinstein has joined the board of directors at Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). According to an SEC filing, Rubinstein was given a restricted stock award of 5,000 company shares to vest over a three year period. Rubinstein is currently the senior VP and general manager of HP and he is still the head of Palm. [MarketWatch]

I feel like slapping myself for not buying stock in Palm because HP just announced that they are acquiring them for $1.2 billion. After the Palm Pre and the Palm Pixi struggled to compete in the smartphone market, the fate of webOS was unclear.

Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) is for sale according to a report by Bloomberg according to three separate sources. Palm is reportedly working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer. As of right now Palm has a market cap of about $1 billion.

Although a sale has not been announced, rumor has it that HTC Corporation and Lenovo Group Ltd. have looked at making offers. If someone buys Palm, then they would have access to the WebOS software. Elevation Partners LP owns 30% of Palm.

Palm was founded in 1992 and launched a device called the PalmPilot. Palm was bought by U.S. Robotics. U.S. Robotis was acquired by 3Com Corporation and then Palm was spun off again in 2000. This past year Palm was highly depending on the success of the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi devices, but they have struggled to compete against Apple iPhones, Microsoft Windows Mobile devices, Google Android, Nokia, etc. [Bloomberg]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has personally responded to e-mails with questions that are sent to his corporate account.  His responses have gained a lot of media attention so a reader of Zatsnotfunny sent an e-mail to Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) CEO Jon Rubinstein to see if he responds too.  The reader got a response back from Rubinstein, a former Apple executive.

The e-mail that the ZatsNotFunny reader sent said:

Palm’s CEO Jon Rubinstein sent out a letter to Palm employees discussing how demands for their mobile phones were “well below” the company’s forecasts. This caused mobile phone carriers to put orders for Palm devices on hold too. However Verizon said that they will work with Palm to help them improve sales. Below is the full letter sent out by Rubinstein. [WSJ]

Palm Inc. executive Jon Rubinstein is a former Apple executive.  Earlier this week he had become the CEO of Palm from the Chairman position.  The previous Palm CEO Ed Colligan will be moving to Elevation Partners.  Elevation Partners is a major investor in Palm.  Elevation invested $100 million into Palm this past December.

Rubinstein joined Palm around 2007 and helped the company develop the Pre phone.  The Palm Pre had helped Sprint break a sales record and helped Texas Instruments boost their revenues.  Rubinstein joined Apple around 1997 when Steve Jobs returned to the company.  In 2001, Rubinstein was given credit for helping invent the iPod.

As the new CEO, Rubinstein will receive about $1.7 million per year.  For leaving the company Colligan will receive $1.2 million payable in several chunks over the next year.

[via mocoNews]