Palm SVP of Product Development, Mike Bell, leaves for Intel 32
Engadget reports that Palm's (now former) Senior Vice President of Product Development, Mike Bell, has left the company to pursue the same role at Intel. Bell was responsible for "the company's product realisation group," and formerly worked at Apple for 16 years.
Intel announced today that we have hired Mike Bell-a veteran of both Palm and Apple-as vice president and director of Smartphone Product Development in the company's Ultra Mobility Group (UMG).
Bell is now part of a fairly large cohort of top Palm executives and creative leaders to have left the company in the wake of the HP buyout. Speaking of that team, Palm has removed their executive team page from their corporate site.
Source: Engadget; Thanks to everybody who sent this in!
32 Comments
Is this our (was) plastic pre in chief?
Nothing to see here... Move along. We've got a whole new staff to cover this. It was fun. Good luck @ MeeGoWorld Mike.
.... And get a haircut.
So how many more of these are going to have to be reported before all the people who say "this is normal for an acquisition" going to own up that all of these people saw the writing on the wall that HP is calling ALL the shots, and they did not acquire Palm for its people -- just its technology.
This is an alarming trend...I thought they were all done with, I wonder how many more have jumped ship that we haven't heard of yet.
SVP's don't want to be midline managers. No alarming trend, we warned you this would happen. It's common practice in the the world of acquisitions.
So settle down Chicken-Little, HP has a huge pool of more experienced executive managers and VP's more than capable of filling these slots. And the people taking these open slots are from the "whos-who" ranks of industry innovators. Most of the departures have "served ___ years at Apple" as their crowning achievement to date.
Best of luck to him, MeeGo is my WebOS backup, so I hope he finds great success.
This is normal. Hp is not going to keep the executives around. They already have their own SVP's. They dont need cheifs, they need Web OS and some workers. I would not be suprized if he wasnt told to hit the bricks.
Marketing = fail
Hardware = outdated and some would say FAIL
Mike A = no room for him.
UI designer = his job is done
Where's your worries @? Who is crucial to the survival of webOS that left?
Ben is here. Dion is here. Chuq is here. Jason R. Is here. Rob & Internals is here. Dieter & Company. Jon Rubie to hold it all together... And HP and P | C community... I'm good.
what's your problem? That's all I need.
I think you underestimate the value of the UI designer. Sure, the webOS UI is finished, but he is the mind behind the innovation that made the UI what it is. With him gone, that design is doomed to stagnate unless someone with fresh, new ideas comes along. Without that kind of constant innovation, we would still be using PalmOS.
@spyral
He managed development, he didn't invent anything. And fresh ideas and talent will keep WebOS growing. Nobody was so unique and brilliant that WebOS can't survive without. None of them were Einstein. It was a team effort and the team goes on.
Ben, Dion and Chuq are great guys, but they are not engineers or UI designers and don't have too much to do with the development of the phones or the OS. The rest of the people you mention have zero to with the development of the OS and the hardware. Their work is valuable, but it only benefits the tiny fraction of WebOS users that homebrew.
Palm keeps bleeding the people that made WebOS what it is. These were the people that came up with the excellent interface and the features like notifications, multi-tasking, synergy, etc. It's a huge detriment to lose them.
Mattias Duarte was probably the biggest loss. Google didn't hire him to head Android UI development because he is just some other designer that can be easily replaced. To say that UI development is done is just a dumb comment. The UI is great, but there is still a lot of room for improvement and evolution.
Different people with potentially different styles and ideas are taking over. This may or may not be a good thing. We'll just have to see. Let's hope they don't fuck it up.
Still, I don't blame those who are leaving. They seem to be getting excellent gigs at top notch companies. That ought to tell you just how important these people were to Palm.
Ok...
"Ben, Dion and Chuq are great guys, but they are not engineers or UI designers and don't have too much to do with the development of the phones or the OS."
... And I believe HP has plenty of qualified people to handle the development of the phone. As for the OS, I believe the 'groundwork' and 'roadmap' has been set. I don't see any major UI Design overhaul happening anytime soon.
As I mentioned previously, the roadmap has been said to be on track, or as I've read is being following by HP. I do not believe Palm will just wither up and die because some of the 'key minds' are moving on.
People move on. Companies still function. I wish them well, but, I think it will be business as usual.
"The rest of the people you mention have zero to with the development of the OS and the hardware. Their work is valuable, but it only benefits the tiny fraction of WebOS users that homebrew."
They make it count to me. Tiny fraction or not, with a thriving developer community, it will attract more consumers...
Don't get me wrong. I don't think Palm is going down because they lost a few people. I just think it's a shame to lose some of the key people that made WebOS great to begin with. I was stoked to see what they had in store for it. I hope that the folks that take over for them are as creative and ingenious. I want a Pre 2, not an iPaq.
I agree with you on that notion. It is definitely sad to see the 'bunch' break apart... HOWEVER.. Sometimes fresh people take a whole new spin on things for the better. I'm confident HP will step in if Palm decides to take a beaten path.
I also want a Pre2.
Is this the part where we diss people at Palm who we have never heard of until two minutes ago in order to feel better about our smartphones?
Sure HP is calling the shots now - that is what happens. Not knocking Palm, however, if they had made some different choices they would still be independent, but things change. Been through a couple of acquisitions myself, part of the game. People leave or are pushed out as roles don't need to be duplicated. I am happy that the product, WebOS, is intact and will become part of the HP product development mainstay. I am ready for new mobile hardware and devices to support what has been developed. I am also confident that HP will continue to build on what has been created and that we all have great things to look forward to in the future, like a launch of a FAMILY of products. Although there are lot of products dropping each week, most are garbage and are not the products that Pre users would purchase with the exception of a few.
PS - I am writing this on my HP computer. If I was printing it it would be on my Epson printer, lol.
PPS - I hate the word FAIL and EPIC - so social media . . .
Yeah, I'm pretty meh about people using FAIL as a noun, too. And I'm so over emoticons ;)
Using fail to mean failure, as in an exam, was marked "obsolete" in the OED until 1993.
Amongst the 1993 additions:
fail, noun
A failure to achieve the standard required to pass an examination; a classification denoting this.
I think it would be constructive to add some examples of the use of fail (noun) that may help to counteract the extremist views and labels of "wrong", "uneducated", "recent", "stupid" and so on.
This use of "fail" has such a long history that it had come to be labelled obsolete. Until, that is, a revival in the latter half of the last century. I should point out that the revival has nothing at all to do with the upsurge in internet use. Here are two examples from the OED.
Quote:
1944 J. L. BRERETON Case for Examinations 206 The marks..have fulfilled their purpose when they have enabled the examiners to classify the candidates in each subject separately as
good luck to him at intel.. Just status quo for a company being bought by a larger company.... It happens..
like I said good luck to Mike Bell hopefully he can help Intel out.. They kinda need it.
Que?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/13/intel-has-its-best-quarter-ever-bring...
Intel as a company is doing fine. Intel Mobility is way behind in the marketplace and thank God they're pairing up with Nokia who is also way behind on next generation O/S terms. If Mike can work some WebOS magic with Intel, we might have a suitable substitute for WebOS beyond droid and iphone.
Mike, Kudos to you if you can grandfather symbian apps functionally into MeeGo, I considered the lack of bridge between Garnet and Nova to be one of the bigger Palm failings this past year.
It's also possible that the departure of a SVP has nothing to do with the acquisition at all. It's pretty common for people to move around these days, and Intel may have made this guy a great offer. We may never know whether these departures have an impact or not. Let's see what webOS has for us in the fall update, and see what the next hardware looks like, and make our judgments then.
Amen. Sounds like a reasonable idea.
I hope that PreCentral gets all jazzed up and writes articles about all of the folks moving into the Palm group from all quarters of HP.
He is the main person in bringing the APPLE talent to PALM. Ruby got him and bunch of others. I say Ruby did a fantastic job of getting external talent gel with existing Palm engineers. Mike Bell loss will be felt by HP.
He is the no 2 guy at Palm prior to HP buying them.
News from the time he jumped the ship.
"The loss of Bell was apparently so intolerable to Jobs that Palm hasn't dared announce his hire publicly, though he's listed on the company's management page, and SEC filings reveal he's received stock in the company. A Palm spokeswoman says the company hasn't announced any new hires recently. That strikes me as an unlikely reason: The company is desperately in need of some good news, and wooing a top executive from Palm's most lethal rival in the smartphone market would seem to qualify."
Down goes another one...
watch out Intel maybe is coming with Intels webos or android smartphones???
How are Intels phones chips processors sales??? To think about it.
Losing all these guys does suck. There is no doubt about it but the brains behind WebOS was Ruby. He didn't join Palm as CEO. He joined Palm to create WebOS. As long as we still have him we are fine. A good leader can utilize his resources and Ruby has plenty of resources at his disposal, and I am not just talking about what HP brings to the table but also what the WebOS community brings. This is one of the best tech communities around and Ruby and HP know that.
What did Ruby personally contribute to the design of WebOS?
Another employee leaves Palm. Yet, there are people on this site intent on going down with the ship.
News flash: when the key employees keep leaving, it's time to give up on the company.
(As far as me, I just have not time to make it to the Sprint store. When I do, I'm buying an Evo.)
@sweat
LOL, when you grow up and read what you just wrote, you'll be glad only your nickname was attached to it.
NEWS FLASH: Most if not all of the SVP's were expected to quit or be quitted. We've been saying that for months. The fact that its taking this long, is testimonial to:
A/Palm was still a great place to hang out.
B/They're not the hot properties you think they were and had trouble landing a new gig.
C/They were asked to hang around and assist the transition.
D/All of the above.
NOW, you want to give up on Palm? Now that they finally have a budget for R/D, advertising, and talent hires? With guys you've never heard of leaving and Robb and McKinney and dozens others are coming in to take their place, now you want out? LOL The guys that left, developed the wavy bar, or the freaky in/out app card frame to make it look like the phone isnt stuck while loading apps. The guys that are coming in, invented technologies like GSM. We're losing the Bad News Bears and getting an MLB allstar team.
So finish up your lawn mowing, collect your money, count your cash, get mom to drive you to Sprint and go get that $10/more a month (without available 4G service) droid-of-the-week. We're gonna miss you.
In other words, Palm is losing talent that actually created WebOS and gaining people who have no track record of creating a mobile operating system or devices.
PreDog,
If guys at the top are leaving, then it is very likely that the guys in the middle who have done a lot of the grunt work are leaving as well. How much comment did they leave in the code? Who knows.
Then there is Rubi, who is still in charge. His track record at Palm is pathetic, at best.
Then there is webOS. Do you really think HP cares about the OS? The answer is no. If they can slap the Palm name on an Android phone and outsell webOS devices, why wouldn't they do it? If I were a shareholder, I'd demand they leverage their new phone provider relationships to sell whatever device was the most popular, regardless of OS. The value in Palm is that provided an automatic in to wireless providers - not webOS, which numbers show has not gained any real traction in the marketplace.
The simple fact is that Palm had a chance and they blew it. The steady stream of people leaving the company is a sign those on the inside know this as well.
This really isn't surprising at all.
Guys who deserve to be on top will stay on top.
If some fat slut rolls on top of you, you're not on top anymore.