Jon Rubinstein Leaves HP

It’s been an incredibly bumpy ride for Jon Rubinstein since joining Palm and helped launch webOS. Today marks the end of the line, as it’s been announced the Jon Rubinstein has left HP. According to Ruby via AllThingsD, his plans to leave HP were apparently under way well before the launch the HP TouchPad. With HP’s roadmap for open sourcing webOS complete, he’s moved on. His destination is still yet unknown, but retirement is not something he’s considering just yet. AllThingsD and The Verge have exclusive interviews regarding his departure.

Phone he’s using while calling from Mexico? An HP Veer.

HP Names Meg Whitman President and CEO

Meg Whitman
Rumors circulating that HP was planning on replacing Leo Apotheker with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman became official today. The company announced that its board of directors have appointed Meg Whitman as president and chief executive officer.

“We are fortunate to have someone of Meg Whitman’s caliber and experience step up to lead HP,” said Lane. “We are at a critical moment and we need renewed leadership to successfully implement our strategy and take advantage of the market opportunities ahead. Meg is a technology visionary with a proven track record of execution. She is a strong communicator who is customer focused with deep leadership capabilities. Furthermore, as a member of HP’s board of directors for the past eight months, Meg has a solid understanding of our products and markets.”

Whitman said, “I am honored and excited to lead HP. I believe HP matters – it matters to Silicon Valley, California, the country and the world.”

Speaking on behalf of the board, Lane said, “We very much appreciate Léo’s efforts and his service to HP since his appointment last year. The board believes that the job of the HP CEO now requires additional attributes to successfully execute on the company’s strategy. Meg Whitman has the right operational and communication skills and leadership abilities to deliver improved execution and financial performance.”

Palm Branding Dropped On Palm.com

A quick look at Palm.com and it appears that the next step in transitioning to HP has occurred. The first thing you’ll notice are the familiar colors of Palm are completely gone, replaced with the look and feel of an HP website. When HP purchased Palm, the Palm logo remained in a uncomfortable position next to the blue and very dominant HP logo. That too is noticeably absent on the site.

HP website

The transition is still in flux, with the logo redirecting to the HP website, with visible links to phones or tablets. Times, they are a changin’.

HP Delivers webOS 2.1 To European Pre Plus Phones

Good news for those of you who live in Europe. webOS 2.1 is available for the German Palm Pre Plus. Updating is not your typical OTA variety, but requires you download the webOS 2.1 doctor from their site. Bad news for those of us stateside, as the doctor will not work with Pre Plus phones on US carriers. There is a movement in place that will allow you to modify the doctor for use on your phones, but appears to be in the alpha stages.

Still no word from Palm on their plan to “make things right“. One would assume webOS 2.1 runs perfectly fine on Pre Plus devices, given an official release in Europe. While we applaud the efforts of webOS Internals, there really needs to be an official release available from HP. For most, updates that require terminal entries is far from a realistic upgrade path.

[PreCentral]

Verizon Makes HP Pre 2 Official, Priced at $149.99 After Rebate

We all knew it was coming, but Verizon today dropped the press release for the HP Pre 2, which features webOS 2.0. Full presser and specs available after the break. The HP Pre 2 is priced at $149.99 (after a $50 mail-in rebate) and a new 2-year agreement. It is available starting on February 17th. We have to say the price is a bit surprising. Both the Verizon iPhone and the HP Pre 2 will carry a $199.99 in-store price tag before rebates. This could spell tough sledding for the Pre 2.

HP Pre 2
Continue Reading …

New HP webOS Ad Takes Walk On Wild Side

HP used the Grammy’s last night to preview the HP TouchPad and webOS among other
HP technologies. The “Anthem” ad uses the classic Lou Reed song “Take a Walk on the Wild Side”.

Thumbs up? Thumbs down?

HP TouchPad Priced at $699, Coming In June?

BGR is reported that his sources say the HP TouchPad will launch as early as June with a $699 price tag. It’s not clear if this is a 3G model and whether it is the 16GB or 32GB model.

HP TouchPad

The 16GB WiFi iPad retails for $499, while the Motorola XOOM is rumored to be priced at $799. Details regarding the XOOM are also still vague.

via BGR

HP Plans To “Make Things Right”

The exhaustive amount of feedback on blogs, Twitter and Palm’s own Facebook page saw a huge outcry from the webOS community in response to word that legacy devices (those prior to the Pre 2), would not receive an update to webOS 2.x. The Palm blog last night responded to the criticism.

“…ultimately it became clear that we would need to choose between supporting the past with over-the-air updates and ensuring that our upcoming devices would live up to your hopes and expectations for them. It was a difficult and, frankly, painful decision for us, and we realize it was a frustrating outcome for many of you.”

It’s still not clear as to when Palm (branding moves aside, this was a move by Palm) made this tough decision, but clearly the timing was not very well thought out. Yesterday should have been a day of positive vibes for the company, but was tarnished by the news. HP doesn’t have a solution yet to appease the community, but they are working something to ease the pain.

“We’re working on something that we hope will help make things right for you. We’ll be sharing the specifics with you when they’re ready.”

Our hope was that webOS 2.0 would help fix the sluggishness that’s present on current generation Palm webOS devices. It’s not clear if “making things right” will mean a webOS 2.0 doctor that allows us to update or perhaps some sort of voucher to purchase a future product at a reduced price. HP doesn’t have the answer yet, so anything on our end is just pure speculation. If I had to guess, a coupon for AppCatalog purchases might make sense. It would continue to stream cash to developers and customers having more apps would be less likely to flee the platform.

How about you? What are you expecting from HP that will “make things right”?

via Palm’s blog

Verizon HP Pre 2 Now Available For Pre-Order

HP now offers the Verizon HP Pre 2 for pre-order on their site. The HP Pre 2 is priced at $99.99, with a new 2-year agreement. The HP Pre 2 starts shipping on February 17th. We were unable to locate the Pre 2 on Verizon’s website, so you’ll need to go directly through HP if you’re looking to order now.
HP Pre 2

It appears the Pre 2 has also shed the Palm name.

Video: webOS Think Beyond Event

HP has just posted the entire video of Think Beyond event and we present it to you for your viewing pleasure.