Ed Colligan Steps Down After Sixteen Years at Palm
10 June 2009 by Shaun
One Comment
Ed Colligan is leaving Palm to be replaced by Jon Rubinstein. Jon will take up the role on 12th June and Ed will eventually move to Elevation Partners who owns a significant chunk of Palm.
It is the end of an era for Palm because Ed Colligan has been with the company since the 90’s and involved in almost every product release since, apart from when he went to Handspring and then came back again when Palm bought it. It is easy to criticise someone who presided over a decline in a company, almost to the point of collapse, and so I will. I think this is a good move and may add one more spring in Palm’s step which is of course good for the industry as a whole… More at Palm.
Yes, a good move. But I don’t share the view that Palm’s demise is down to only Colligan (which many online seem to do). Palm has never had the money, or the size of company, of the Apples, Nokias and Motorolas of this world. Having only two lines of (at the time) niche products – PDAs and smartphones (PDAs are now sadly dead and smartphones are becoming mainstream) – it seems to me they’ve never had the money to keep the innovation going and have fallen badly behind. The Pre might save them – I hope so anyway. And Rubinstein is the obvious, and best, choice.
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