Rubinstein joins Amazon's board 52
by Dieter Bohn Fri, 17 Dec 2010 11:35 am EST
HP's Senior Vice President and General Manager, Palm Global Business Unit (say that ten times fast), Jon Rubinstein, has joined Amazon's Board of directors, reports All Things D. Rubinstein received 5,000 shares of limited Amazon stock as well.
Good to see Palm making more connections in the industry. Let's hope that Palm is making one more connection with Amazon - getting their Kindle ebook app available for webOS devices - the Android Kindle app is looking mighty nice after the update.
Source: sec.gov; via: All Things D
52 Comments
A WebOS tablet WITHOUT a Kindle App will be a big fail. It isn't the only thing people use tablets for, but another of those "required" things to make the tablet be taken seriously.
I'd love to be able to read a little on my Pre too, when the Kindle isn't with me. Actually, I'd love to be able to read a little on my Pre 2 too. :) But I'm on Sprint. :(
You summed up my feelings exactly.
So presumably in this context, having Ruby on the Amazon board is a good thing because it would increase the likelihood of a Kindle app for the Palmpad?
Hopefully the improve the MP3 app as well
That's what Music Player Remix is for.
when will you start thinking about the huge majority of people who dont use homebrewed stuff?
Music Player Remix isn't a homebrew only solution, or at least it won't be soon enough.
The beta of Music Player (Remix) is a homebrew app. Once webOS 2.0 is released, the app will be released in the official app catalog.
But the Amazon MP3 app is the one that comes installed on pretty much all webOS phones.
Music Remix is a MUSIC PLAYER.. The Amazon app downloads the music I buy to listen on Music Remix.. There 2 totally different things o_O
Yeah, definitely a key misunderstanding on his part, heh.
Ah, thought you meant the player.
I wonder if there will be any bigger partnership between HP and Amazon's cloud services. I am sure HP would love to supply hardware for the cloud and WebOS could leverage the scale of the the Amazon cloud services for Music, Video, Documents etc.
Rubinstein better get us a Kindle app. He better wow the Amazon execs with the PalmPad and convince them that they need to get on webOS.
Hey guys glad to aboard, we have been working on some really great devices. As much as I would love to show you what we have up our sleeves, the prototypes are not ready but should be "in the coming months" so please be patient.
I'm sure that will work right???? it has to they have been selling the same line for months now...
Um, that's the consumer-facing message. B2B will be a different beast entirely (because everything takes longer) and will probably have more details/prototypes to show.
Alternatively, maybe he's just networking for a new job for when HP throws in the towel with Palm!
HP didn't pay $1B for Rubinstein. He is more expendable than webOS.
In addition to the kindle app, there needs to be an integrated itunes-like store where one can download movies, tv shows, books music... etc... they need to put the whole package together. hardware is hardware, anyone can make it, but what separates apple from the rest is the integrated media experience. let's go palm, get you act together!
Well the Pre and Pixi already have the Amazon MP3 store. And Amazon has Unbox for TV & movies and Kindle for books. So the building blocks are there. So a unified Amazon Mobile Store for books, music, and movies is definitely doable. Throw in an HDMI port on higher end webOS devices - or perhaps a Media Touchstone Charger with an HDMI port & Wi-Fi media streaming and you've got yourself a stew going.
HP should just buy them. Why not?
Amazon's market cap being nearly $80B (yes, B, not M) might have something to do with it.
With Amazon pushing more services onto their kindle, I wonder if this could indicate Amazon considering not just pushing the Kindle App to WebOS, but perhaps adopting a version of WebOS for use on the Kindle?
I doubt that, because WebOS is touch-based, and Bezos has shown zero interest in developing a touch-based Kindle.
this is the kind of idle speculation that should be fliushed down the toilet. there is zero chance that amazon would adopt webos for the kindle, and moreover no indication whatsoever that HPalm has any intention of licensing webos... furthermore if amazon were considering using an outside OS to power the kindle don't you think they'd use Android, which is free and has a much wider user base? i am so tired of reading this wishful thinking, pie-in-the sky BS.... cmon people, think... this is almost as lame as the military post from a couple days ago
okay, last night I was entertaining the idea of Palm offering to design a color kindle for Amazon in return for a kindle app on all palm producta and other perks like amazon video. And this hits today...
I use to put alot of emotions and details of what palm should do but then I realized...whats the point? They obviously don't read these posts and it's obvious they don't care..... Next post will be rubenstein is leaving hp/palm for amazon.....
Lots of corporate VPs and executives sit on the boards of other companies. It's very common in the corporate world.
I foresee HP creating certain strategic partnerships with vendors to use webOS without the fragmentation you get with Android
Forget about the Kindle and eBook potential impact! Since Amazon owns Audible.com, maybe we can get some collective cooperation between our favorite providers (Palm and Audible), and get a native, working app, on Webos, for what used to be Audible Manager and Audible Air!!!!!!
Totally agree with focus on native audible app, though I can't say I agree with forgetting Kindle/ebook impact, especially on PalmPad
On a Kindle App, I would love to be able to turn the pages through forward swipe in the gesture area.
Maybe they sell their devices via Amazon - world wide.
They have HP's shelf space worldwide, why not use that?
Because it is easier. If you have an amazon-account you can use it with every amazon store (.com, .co.uk, .fr, .de). Amazon sells there international version of the kindle in a lot of countries outside the US.
Amazon sells also HP-products, why they shouldn't sell palm devices?
Speaking of cloud services....seems like Yahoo plans to shut down Delicious Bookmarks. Maybe HP should look into that.
Hmmm, syncing my browser's bookmarks automatically to Delicious and being able to access them with any desktop browser. Throw in an option to convert or redirect websites to a mobile friendly format and you'll be streets ahead of the game.
Gawd I hope so. Need an ebook store app BADLY and for tablets is a requirement!
There IS the Kobo book reader app in the App Catalog. Has been there forever.
-Can purchase, download, and read books
-Supports syncing book marks across platforms.
-Kobo is Border's eBook platform with 100's of 1000's of books available.
-Popular categories available (Best seller, book club, Author collections, etc.)
Check it out.
double post
Does this guy look like an Avatar to anyone else???
Yea... But for sure he needs a new shirt... Seems like he is always wearing that Grey shirt.. Looks just like the one The Maytag Repairman wears... Oh I got it, he is a maytag repair dude. His part time job is HPalm, you know maytag guys never have to work because their equipment DOES.. Thats a hint John! Get some Maytag engineers over to HPalm...
People who have to hack their phone to keep it working don't generally pay for ebooks.
Well, I'm glad Ruby found something to do with all his spare time... Creating a next-generation superphone is certainly not going to require his full time attention...
+1
If only to evangelize webOS to the board and internally at Amazon, I'm glad for this move. I think people saying "it's cuz he's gonna change jobs! He's on the outs!" are reading too much into this. This cross-pollination is quite common (Eric Schmidt formerly on Apple's board for instance). And any way, even if that were the case, I would find it hard to believe that he wouldn't still try to evangelize webOS to them.
In any case, I hope that this leads to more Amazon development for the platform (Kindle app, a proper Amazon site app, improvements to the mp3 store app with possibly the video store added in, etc). We'll see.
Guys, he also might be looking for something to do if he leaves HP. I'm just sayin...
He could preach webos all he wants but with hp/palm bleeding consumers at a ever increasing daily rate what good do you think that's gonna do for amazon's app dev's. It's the same story guys, not enough webos consumers out there for anyone to care about us.....
Bleeding 1% of the market won't do anything. HP is probably looking to "reboot" with the devices coming next year.
Kind of shocking. Many view Amazon as a leader in the cloud. Meanwhile, HP is building their hardware and software divisions with an eye towards the cloud with webOS already there. While HP is both partner and enemy of companies like Microsoft and Oracle it's a bit puzzling why Amazon is bringing in Ruby. That's like Apple bringing in Schmidt AFTER they launch Android. Either something is up between the companies that has yet to be disclosed or this one is not going to last very long.
anyone know when they're bringing in Amazon mp3 for UK,cause it kinda sux not to have that app ...
we're supposed to get the webos 2.0 update dec 12th lol
Hpalm is gd on keeping promises
It bugs me also we can't get the Amazon app in the UK while it is available in the US and also to rub salt in the wounds it is available in the UK but only on Android :(