Palm announced today that Jon Rubinstein, a former Apple executive, will become the company’s Chairman and CEO, replacing Ed Colligan who is stepping down, at the end of the week. The news comes on the heels of the Palm Pre launch just days ago described as very successful by Sprint.
“I am very excited about taking on this expanded role at Palm,” said Rubinstein. “Ed and I have worked very hard together the past two years, and I’m grateful to him for everything he’s done to help set the company up for success. With Palm webOS we have ten-plus years of innovation ahead of us, and the Palm Pre is already one of the year’s hottest new products. Due in no small part to Ed’s courageous leadership, we’re in great shape to get Palm back to continuous growth, and we plan to keep the trajectory going upward.”
Colligan will be moving over to Elevation Partners, a private equity firm that bought a stake in Palm back in 2007.