“Smartphone maker Palm Inc. will sell a 25 percent stake to private equity firm Elevation Partners for $325 million, the company said Monday, and announced that the former technical guru behind the iPod will become chairman,” The Associated Press reports.
“Palm, best known for the Treo line of phones, said two board members — former CEO Eric Benhamou and D. Scott Mercer — will resign. Elevation partners Fred Anderson and Roger McNamee will join Palm’s board, and former iPod guru Jon Rubenstein will join the board as executive chairman,” AP reports.
“Rubenstein ran the iPod division at Apple from 2004 to 2006 and was key in the creation of Apple’s iMac computer before that,” AP reports. “Anderson, the former chief financial officer of Apple, recently agreed to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges related to a stock options backdating probe at Apple. He also agreed to pay about $3.5 million in fines, without admitting wrongdoing. Anderson also serves as a director of eBay and Move Inc.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “MacFreak” for the heads up.]
Pick that carcass clean, guys, and run. Palm is dead.
Have you read about Foleo? It would be like carrying around a 10″ screen TV all day to connect with your portable DVD player.
Former Apple execs Rubinstein and Anderson join Palm’s board
When you get old and rich, all you really want is something to keep yourself busy. You could care less if the company isn’t a smashing success, it’s not your ass on the line.
The reason why these guys are not at Apple anymore is because they are throw offs, too old, not good enough, not motivated enough, pick your reason.
To survive at Apple, you got to be good, very good.
Maybe Fred can stay out of trouble with the Feds this time…
The only thing Palm is getting is more hairy.
Maybe with Rubinstein’s leadership, Palm can come up with an new MP3 player.
They can call it the Pune.
I actually feel sorry for Palm. They did a much better job stealing from the Newtan than Microsoft did stealing from the Mac.
You never know. Rubenstein is an intelligent guy and has some talent. He may be able to invigorate a company that had a good start but got very stagnant and lost its direction.
Ah, ha! Now we know where the next iPhone-iPod-iTablet-iDon’tGiveaDamn killer productt will be coming.
What’s a Newtan?
Something you get at teh new beach?
Bono is one of Evolutuons partners. Does this mean the end of the U2 Special Edition iPod?
And who will take the place of the new Special Edition iPod or should I say, iPhone?
The’re going to build it up to a point a which Nokia or M$ buy them out to compete against Apple ( being as the in house team effort is in the pan already). Invest $325M sell for $1Bn in a couple of years – nice, if it works
“Rubenstein ran the iPod division at Apple from 2004 to 2006 and was key in the creation of Apple’s iMac computer before that,”
And here I was thinking it was The Steve who was key in the creation of the iMac. Silly me.
“What did Jon Rubenstein say after recovering from a five-day drinking binge?”
“OH F$%K! ! ! I joined what board?”
lol MacFreak
MDN word: spirit <–MDN must have some oracle behind it
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”big surprise” style=”border:0;” />
“And here I was thinking it was The Steve who was key in the creation of the iMac. Silly me.”
Yes Silly You. Everybody knows that Steve is the Reality Distortion Field Guy, not the actual Product Design or Implementation Guy.