Palm Shares Rise

As Jon Rubinstein gets ready to take the chief executive post at Palm Inc. (PALM), news of his appointment earned a warm reception from Wall Street early Thursday.

After Wednesday's closing bell, Palm said that Chief Executive Ed Colligan is stepping down from the top slot and will be replaced by Rubinstein, the former Apple Inc. (AAPL) executive who has been leading Palm's recent turnaround efforts.

Shares of Palm rose about 6.7% to $12.79 in recent trading.

"We think Palm investors should view this transition as a positive," wrote analysts at JPMorgan in a note to clients. "We believe Mr. Rubinstein has been the guiding force behind the Palm Pre and the webOS."

The executives' moves come just days after Palm launched the Pre smartphone, a key part of a two-year restructuring plan designed to revive Palm's device business.

"Under Rubinstein, an experienced former Apple executive who ran the iPod division, we expect that Palm will focus on innovation and execution, areas where Palm had lost its edge," wrote Lawrence Harris of CL King. "We therefore view the appointment of Rubinstein as CEO positively."

In a statement Wednesday, Palm said Colligan plans to join Elevation Partners, the private equity firm that took a major stake in Palm two years ago. As part of that deal, Elevation installed Rubinstein in the role of executive chairman to lead the development of the Pre and a new operating system, called webOS, that could serve as a foundation of a future family of wireless devices.

Colligan has been with the company for 16 years, having served as chief executive of Handspring before that company's merger with Palm in 2003.

"Ed and I have worked very hard together the past two years," Rubinstein said in the statement. "With Palm webOS we have 10-plus years of innovation ahead of us, and the Palm Pre is already one of the year's hottest new products."

Before joining Palm, Rubinstein spent nearly a decade at Apple, where he served as senior vice president of engineering and helped oversee the development of several of the company's famous Mac computers as well as the popular iPod digital-media player.



from the wall street journal