Jon Rubinstein, former chief executive officer at HP, has said the purchase of American smartphone manufacturer Palm was pointless in retrospect, although the company’s developments paved the way for future operating systems.
Rubinstein revealed his opinion to Fire Wireless, saying he would not have agreed to the deal if he knew a shutdown was to follow.
Palm was originally acquired in July 2010 to give HP access to a mobile operating system and the smartphone market.
He said: “Talk about a waste. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company?”
However, the closedown of the company was announced by Leo Apotheker, chief executive officer in 2011, following failed attempts at popularity.
The decision also led to the termination of WebOS services.
“Palm was dying when I got there… it had no future at the time,” Rubinstein continued.
However, he believes the foundation for WebOS was laid despite the obstacles, which also paved the way for recently released features as used by Android, Apple and Microsoft.
Referring to Mac OS X spotlighting notifications, multitasking and cards, Rubinstein thinks the features also bear resemblance with WebOS.
“We did a lot of things that were very, very innovative,” he said.
Meanwhile Meg Whitman, current chief executive officer, sounded hopeful aboutrevenue growth for fiscal year 2014 despite the uncertainty of the PC market future.
