Cloud Computing: Jon Rubinstein, Father of webOS, Leaves HP
January 31, 2012
HP has dispensed with the services of former Palm CEO and pivotal Apple graduate Jon Rubinstein, according to AllThingsDigital.
Rubinstein has been like a man without a country since HP, after spending billions on the stuff decided it couldn’t go toe to toe with Apple and Google, and up and dumped Palm’s webOS-based phones and TouchPad last August then announced that by September it would open source the operating system on which Rubinstein spent four-and-a-half years of his life…
Before those decisions were make he supposedly told HP’s PC chief Todd Bradley that he wanted to leave after the TouchPad shipped, which it briefly did last year, but Bradley asked him to stick around to give advice, help out with the transition to webOS and brainstorm about the directions of HP’s Personal Systems Group, which was then unthreatened. Rubinstein says he never meant to stay more than two years. (That’s why they brought it Stephen DeWitt.)
Open source or not, Rubinstein told the blog that webOS will succeed only if it’s licensed to other companies.
He wouldn’t talk about the failed TouchPad, but he obviously thinks the gadget, all of six weeks on the market, wasn’t given a fair shot.
He’s taking time off down Mexico way before doing something else. He’s still on the board at Amazon.