colligan

Report: Palm spurned Apple offer on hiring

Two years ago, Palm's then CEO, Ed Colligan, rejected a proposal from Apple chief Steve Jobs to promise not to hire each other's employees, according to Bloomberg News.

According to Thursday's Bloomberg story, which cited unspecified "communications" between the two executives, Colligan in August 2007 said that Jobs' proposal was ill-considered. Jobs was worried about losing key Apple employees to Palm and said "we must do whatever we can to stop this," reported Bloomberg.

"Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other's employees, regardless of the individual'… Read more

Palm picks new pilot to run company

This post was updated with more background information on Palm and at 3:10 p.m. PDT with analyst comment.

Palm announced Wednesday afternoon that Jon Rubinstein will become the new chairman and CEO of the smartphone maker. Ed Colligan will step down as Palm's chief after 16 years with the company.

Rubinstein joined Palm as executive chairman in October 2007 and will take over as CEO on June 12. Colligan will take some time off, then join Elevation Partners, the private equity firm that has a 25 percent stake in Palm. Rubinstein's appointment now appears to explain … Read more

Palm CEO: WebOS bigger than just the Pre base

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Updated: Amid weak fiscal third-quarter results reported Thursday, Palm Chief Executive Edward Colligan said that the company is well positioned to launch the Pre and promised a road map of smartphones and an application ecosystem built on the company's new WebOS. Bottom line: Palm envisions an entire product line built on the WebOS.

Palm didn't put a date on the Pre launch, but said the device and its software were "being polished up" and being certified from Sprint as the company prepares to ramp up manufacturing. … Read more

Podcast: Talking the Pre with Palm CEO

LAS VEGAS--Palm, the pioneer in personal digital assistants and the developer of the once popular Treo smartphone, has fallen behind Apple and Research in Motion in recent years. But its new product, the Palm Pre, could bring the company back to life.

The new phone, introduced Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show, is at first glance extremely impressive. Like the iPhone, it features a touch screen with a multitouch interface that lets you move from screen to screen by flicking your finger, or zoom into a picture or Web page by pinching. But it also has a pull-out keyboard. And … Read more

Palm CEO talks up 'Nova,' his 2009 operating system

Palm CEO Ed Colligan says the company's long-awaited operating system of the future will center around the Internet, and be distinct from the familiar Palm OS that's currently available.

Palm has been somewhat tight-lipped about the future of its operating system development, but Colligan gave an interview to APC in which he described the "Nova" OS as a "next-generation operating system with much more capabilities, driven around the Internet and Web-based applications." Nova will be based on a Linux core and is scheduled to arrive next year.

The idea is to return to what … Read more

Rock bottom for Palm and Hawkins?

Suddenly, it seems even more fitting that a company called Elevation Partners recently took a stake in Palm.

This might be rock bottom for the storied mobile-computing company. The decision to cancel the Foleo even before letting people get their hands on it is an embarrassing admission that Palm's vision of the computing world is way off base from the rest of the world, and it's a black mark on the otherwise stellar career of Palm founder Jeff Hawkins.

It's hard to dump too much on Hawkins. The man invented the Palm Pilot and the Treo. I … Read more