Palm's newly-announced $1.2 billion sale to Hewlett Packard is great news for Bono: It means the U2 frontman's Elevation Partners roughly broke even on its 2007 investment in Palm. No loss! Who's the "Worst Investor in America" now, mate?
With the other Elevation Partners, singer Bono invested in Palm, an analyst dartboard; Yelp, a class-action magnet; and Forbes and Move.com, both financially bulldozed. He might be our "worst investor," but Bono's financial blues album should be a hit.
Some extraordinary communications have leaked to Bloomberg, showing Steve Jobs threatening his counterpart at Palm. It seems the Apple CEO — and supposed empowerer of creative workers everywhere — wanted to keep his workers locked down like so much chattel.
Palm has become the premiere sanctuary for Steve Jobs refugees. As if to cast aside any doubt over this fact — and to underline that it's working — the smartphone maker tonight promoted former iPod chief Jon Rubinstein to CEO.
Forbes has a cover story on how Steve Jobs got himself in hot water with the SEC over stock options. The magazine is part-owned by former Apple CFO Fred Anderson. Do the math.
CNET gadget reviewer Bonnie Cha is mad as hell, and she's not going to take it anymore! Why? Palm won't let her place both hands on a prototype of its iPhone-smashing Pre smartphone.
No Silicon Valley company is more arrogant than Apple. But Palm, the smartphone maker, is trying to copy Steve Jobs's knack for hubris — as well as everything else about its rival.
What did Steve Jobs do to his old buddy Bono? The Irish rock star, once the Apple CEO's adoring buddy, is funding the most credible threat to the iPhone yet.
Palm Pilots were the epitome of cutting-edge cool — in 1998. By 2004, when the movie came out, the PDA market had entered terminal decline, as people switched to keeping their contacts on increasingly advanced cell phones. And the best part?
A tipster tells us that Palm, the troubled smartphone maker, is laying off 10 percent of its staff. I called a spokeswoman at the company, who confirmed the layoffs but not the number of employees affected; Palm, at last count, had about 1,050 employees. She also said the company would make "program cuts" —…
Has Palm run out of Apple engineers to poach? Or has Steve Jobs's intimidation campaign proven effective? Whatever the reason, Palm's latest hire seems smart: Matias Duarte, the designer of the user interface for the Sidekick and Helio's Ocean.
Instead of holding onto cash, tech firms such as Monster, Palm, Intuit, EarthLink and MetroPCS in recent years bought something called auction-rate securities. Basically — very basically — that means these companies loaned out around $856 million because banks told them they'd earn more than they would just holding…
Jon Rubinstein, the chairman of Palm, is once again striking former boss Steve Jobs where it hurts — Apple's talent. The latest hire: Lynn Fox, the head of Mac PR, joined Palm earlier this month. For a PR person, she's made the move surprisingly quietly; her name has yet to appear on any press releases. As with Mike…
Did I just buy my last Palm smartphone? My aging Treo 600 — yes, I hear your snickers already — died at SXSW, and I picked up a cheap Centro to replace it at a Sprint store. (A tip: Skip the $50 rebate and pay $149 instead of $99; the monthly data plan will be less expensive.) Chairman Jon Rubinstein is revamping…
Palm is closing its 34 retail stores as the company "consolidates resources" to compete more effectively. Wait, Palm had retail stores? [News.com]
Palm has hired Mike Bell, a 16-year Apple veteran, as its SVP of product development. But you'll never hear that from Palm. The hiring of an industry veteran for a top executive spot is something normally trumpeted as loudly as possible. But Palm is desperately trying to keep quiet the fact that it won over Bell…
"Does it remind you of the Foleo?" Palm's never-released "smartphone companion" laptop, killed on the eve of its introduction last September, does look a bit like Apple's new MacBook Air, though the latter is thinner yet and far more powerful. Under the casings, there's little comparison. Which raises a question:…
Palm stock fell almost 7 percent today after the company reported that it lost $9.63 million in the latest quarter. Last year, in the same period, Palm earned $12.77 million. Too bad for Palm shareholders. Perhaps they can commiserate with the Palm employees that were laid off the week before Christmas. [AP]
A anonymous tipster tells us Palm will lay off 250 employees, confirming our previous report. "The biggest cuts are from OS development," our source says. "[SVP Mark] Bercow wants the OS sold by April or worst case scenario — abandoned." Which seems strange, considering Palm went through some gymnastics just to get…
Nothing spreads holiday cheer like a rosy rash of firings as employees are starting to break out the eggnog. However they may try, there was no fooling CEO Ed Colligan into dispelling rumors he planned to heap coal — pink-slip shaped coal — into 100 stockings. The AP has confirmed that Palm has laid off 10 percent…
