Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) today announced that Douglas C. Jeffries, previously chief accounting officer at eBay, will join Palm, Inc. in January 2009 as the Company's Chief Financial Officer. Andy Brown will transition out of the CFO role and stay with the company through January.

"I am delighted to welcome Doug Jeffries to the Palm team. His extensive financial, operational and strategic experience will contribute enormously to Palm's future success. I look forward to partnering with Doug as we lead Palm to new levels of achievement in the years ahead," said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer. "I also want to personally thank Andy for the way he has guided Palm's finance organization and all that he has accomplished over the past four years. Andy was instrumental in our recent recapitalization and has been a key part of Palm's transformation."

Brown stated, "My experience at Palm has been exciting and fulfilling, but the time is right for me to pursue other interests. Palm's finance organization is well-positioned to support the company's strategic and financial objectives, and I am leaving the many responsibilities of the CFO role in exceptionally capable hands."
 
Doug Jeffries will assume the role of Palm's senior vice president and chief financial officer effective January 7. In addition to his role as chief accounting officer at eBay, Jeffries has held financial and information technology leadership roles at GenCorp, Red Herring Communications and Cardinal Health. Jeffries began his career at Price Waterhouse, is a CPA and holds an MBA from the University of Southern California.
 
Jeffries stated, "It's a great pleasure to join the Palm team and I'm thrilled with the prospect of helping to lead the company forward. As we complete the company's transformation and establish Palm as a leading innovator in the smartphone industry, we will continue to focus aggressively on financial discipline and shareholder value."

Murray has posted his thoughts on the upcoming Palm press conference. For once I am 'stealing' the whole article because he sums up the feelings of many of us.

"This has to be the most exciting news of 2008 for us palm lovin' old timers, yes Palm have announced a Press Conference for January 8th 2009 with the invitations proclaiming "Come to CES to see all that Palm New-ness you've been waiting for." Woooooooaaahhhhhhhh....this can only mean one thing, yes dear readers......a silver Centro!! AT LAST!!

Joking aside, this could be the make or break thing for Palm. It will be interesting to see just how far away from actually shipping a device or two with the new o/s on it they are...if they come out and say "this will be on our next gen Treo in December of this year" then the collective groan ensuing will be heard over here in the UK. Nope, we need to hear that it's available within the first quarter to keep the momentum, if any is left, going. Still, January is traditionally the most depressing month of the year and the post Xmas and New Year return to work is awful but at least there is now something exciting on the horizon."