Jon Rubinstein
Encyclopedia
Jonathan J. Rubinstein (born April 12, 1956) is an American computer scientist and electrical engineer
who helped create the iPod
, the portable music and video device first sold by Apple Computer Inc. in 2001. He has been elected to serve as a member of the National Academy of Engineering
and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
.
He left his position as senior vice president of Apple's iPod division on April 14, 2006. He became executive chairman of the board at Palm, Inc.
after private equity
firm Elevation Partners
completed a significant investment in the handheld manufacturer in October 2007. He was the CEO of Palm, Inc., replacing former CEO Ed Colligan
.
He is now an executive at HP, following HP's purchase of Palm.
Rubinstein is married to Karen Richardson
, chairman of the board of directors
of hi5
. He is a graduate of the Horace Mann School
, class of 1974. He went to college and graduate school at Cornell University
in Ithaca, N.Y.
, where he received a B.S. in electrical engineering
in 1978 and a master’s in the same field a year later. He later earned a M.S. in computer science
from Colorado State University
in Fort Collins, Colorado
.
Rubinstein’s first jobs in the computer industry were in Ithaca, where he worked at a local computer retailer and also served as a design consultant to an area compute
in Colorado. He spent about two years in the company’s manufacturing engineering division, developing quality-control techniques and refining manufacturing processes. Later, Rubinstein worked on HP workstations.
Rubinstein left HP in 1986 to join a startup, Ardent Computer Corp.
, in Silicon Valley
. While at Ardent, later renamed Stardent, he played an integral role in launching a pair of machines, the Titan Graphics Supercomputer and the Stardent 3000 Graphics Supercomputer.
approached Rubinstein to run hardware engineering at his latest venture, NeXT
. Rubinstein headed work on NeXT’s RISC workstation
– a graphics powerhouse that was never released because in 1993, the company abandoned their floundering hardware business in favor of a software-only approach.
After helping to dismantle NeXT’s manufacturing operations, Rubinstein went on to start another company, Power House Systems. That company, later renamed Firepower Systems, was backed by Canon Inc.
and used technology developed at NeXT. It developed and built high-end systems using the PowerPC chip. Motorola
bought the business in 1996.
, computer maker.
Many didn't consider Apple a plum assignment at the time. The company's reputation as an innovator was waning, as were profits - Rubinstein's arrival in February 1997 came on the heels of a year in which Apple lost US$
816 million. But Rubinstein wanted to give it a shot because, he told The New York Times
, "Apple was the last innovative high-volume computer maker in the world."
Rubinstein joined Apple as senior vice president of hardware engineering and a member of its executive staff. He was responsible for hardware development, industrial design and low-level software development, and contributed heavily to Apple's technology roadmap and product strategy.
When Rubinstein arrived, his work was cut out for him. The company sold no fewer than 15 product lines, yet its low-end consumer products were widely derided as technological also-rans. Engineering and product development were similarly troubled. Multiple engineering teams worked on the same product independently of each other, and the various lines were built with non-interchangeable parts. Rubinstein fixed both problems.
He also embarked on an extensive cost-cutting plan that axed both research projects and engineers. Expenses were cut in half. After vetting the projects in the pipeline, the one that appeared ready to deliver was the G3
, a fast PowerPC-based desktop machine. When it was released at the end of 1997, Apple had what it hadn't in several years: a cutting-edge desktop machine that was on a technological par with Intel-based competitors.
In 1998, Apple's lack of an entry-level consumer desktop was soon to be history. While the G3 was being readied, the company was hatching the idea for the colorful, egg-shaped iMac
. Rubinstein assembled a team and then spurred his much-leaner engineering corps to have the product ready to roll in 11 months - a timeline they considered impossible. When it came out, the iMac relied heavily on the USB peripheral standard - not an obvious choice, given that the technology would not be widely available for several years and little used. The iMac also shipped without a floppy disk
drive. Rubinstein was responsible for both decisions.
Future rollouts under Rubinstein's watch included the G4
and G5
series of Macintosh
es. The machines, while considered technical standouts, were still hampered by a public perception that they were "slower" than similar, Intel-based PC
s because their CPUs had lower clock speeds. Rubinstein helped diminish that misconception in a speech following the 2001 rollout of the G4 - and popularized a term, the 'megahertz myth
,' to describe how an Apple running at 867 megahertz could be faster than an Intel processor running at 1.7 gigahertz.
As the Macintosh started becoming successful again, the company began to pursue a strategy that would put the computer at the center of consumers' electronic entertainment. Turning the Mac into a digital hub which would connect with a range of devices formed the basis of Apple's strategy moving forward in the marketplace.
As part of this strategy, Apple developed software to edit videos (iMovie
), organize photos (iPhoto
), and store and play music (iTunes
).
Steve Jobs
charged Rubinstein with coming up with a portable music player on a rushed, eight-month timetable. It was Rubinstein who recognized the utility of the iPod’s key technology, the tiny, 1.8-inch hard disk
drive on which music is stored; he came across it while on a routine visit to Toshiba
. Engineers there had developed the drive, but were not sure how it could be used. It was Rubinstein who assembled and managed a team of hardware and software engineers to ready the product. The team’s engineers needed to overcome a number of hurdles, including figuring out how to play music off a spinning hard drive for more than 10 hours without wiping out a battery charge. Rubinstein’s production contacts proved invaluable, too; the iPod’s sleek, minimalist design, with its high-gloss, engraveable metal back, was a mass-manufacturing triumph. The success of the first-generation iPod was almost overnight. By 2004 the business became so important to Apple that the iPod was spun off into its own division, which Rubinstein took over.
Other iPod models were released on a regular basis, increasing the device’s capacity, decreasing its size, and adding features including color screens, photo display and video playback. By early 2008, more than 119 million iPods had been sold, making it not only the most successful portable media player on the market today but one of the most popular consumer electronics products of all time.
While Rubinstein’s fingerprints are on the iPod’s development, he was also instrumental in creating a robust secondary market for accessories such as speakers, chargers, docking ports, backup batteries, and other add-ons. That gear, produced by a network of independent companies that came to be known as "The iPod Ecosystem", generates more than $1 billion in annual sales. In the 2007 fiscal year, the iPod generated $8.3 billion in revenue, or about a third of Apple's sales.
In October 2005, Apple announced that Rubinstein would be retiring on March 31, 2006. It was later announced that he would make himself available for up to 20% of his workweek on a consulting basis.
. Rubinstein debuted both on January 8, 2009, at the Consumer Electronics Show
(CES) in Las Vegas
. On June 10, 2009, just four days after the successful release of his brainchild, the Palm Pre
, Rubinstein was named the CEO of Palm. On April 28, 2010, HP announced plans to purchase Palm for $1.2 billion. Rubinstein is expected to stay with the company.
The Pre first launched on the Sprint
network. Reports at the time of the launch noted that it was a record for Sprint, with 50,000 units sold its opening weekend; sales have subsequently slowed, however, and in February, Palm warned that its products were not selling as quickly as hoped. A follow-up phone, the Palm Pixi
, was announced on September 8, 2009, and released on Sprint on November 15, 2009.
Rubinstein has said that one of Palm’s keys moving forward will be to “bring on more carriers and more regions.” The company launched its Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus phones on Verizon Wireless
in January 2010, the same month AT&T
announced plans to launch a pair of Palm’s webOS devices later in 2010.
Rubinstein’s visibility in the mainstream tech community grew upon joining Palm. He was the featured guest in September 2009 at the first episode of “The Engadget
Show,” a web videocast produced by the technology weblog. In December 2009, the magazine Fast Company
named Rubinstein one of its Geeks of the Year, along with people such as Facebook
founder Mark Zuckerberg
and writer/director/producer J.J. Abrams; Fast Company also named Rubinstein to its list of the “100 most creative people in business."
On July 1, 2011, HP released the webOS-based TouchPad
, but its sales were lackluster. On July 11, Rubenstein was replaced in his role with the webOS division and assumed a "product innovation role" elsewhere within HP. On August 18, Hewlett-Packard announced that it would discontinue all hardware devices running webOS.
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
who helped create the iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
, the portable music and video device first sold by Apple Computer Inc. in 2001. He has been elected to serve as a member of the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...
.
He left his position as senior vice president of Apple's iPod division on April 14, 2006. He became executive chairman of the board at Palm, Inc.
Palm, Inc.
Palm, Inc., was a smartphone manufacturer headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that was responsible for products such as the Pre and Pixi as well as the Treo and Centro smartphones. Previous product lines include the PalmPilot, Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII, Zire and Tungsten. While their older...
after private equity
Private equity
Private equity, in finance, is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange....
firm Elevation Partners
Elevation Partners
Elevation Partners is an American private equity firm that invests in intellectual property and media and entertainment companies. The firm has $1.9 billion of assets under management....
completed a significant investment in the handheld manufacturer in October 2007. He was the CEO of Palm, Inc., replacing former CEO Ed Colligan
Ed Colligan
Ed Colligan was president and CEO of Palm, Inc. Colligan is currently working at the private equity firm Elevation Partners, a major financial backer of Palm....
.
He is now an executive at HP, following HP's purchase of Palm.
Rubinstein is married to Karen Richardson
Karen Richardson
Karen Richardsons 25-year career in the software business includes positions as a key player in several well-known and highly successful companies.In November 2011, Richardson joined the board of directors of BT Group plc...
, chairman of the board of directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
of hi5
Hi5 (website)
hi5 is a social networking website based in San Francisco, California. The company was founded in 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi. By 2008, comScore reported that hi5 had become the third most popular social networking site in terms of monthly unique visitors....
Early years and education
Rubinstein was born and raised in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He is a graduate of the Horace Mann School
Horace Mann School
Horace Mann School is an independent college preparatory school in New York City, New York, United States founded in 1887 known for its rigorous course of studies. Horace Mann is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League, educating students from all across the New York tri-state area from...
, class of 1974. He went to college and graduate school at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
in Ithaca, N.Y.
Ithaca, New York
The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...
, where he received a B.S. in electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
in 1978 and a master’s in the same field a year later. He later earned a M.S. in computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
from Colorado State University
Colorado State University
Colorado State University is a public research university located in Fort Collins, Colorado. The university is the state's land grant university, and the flagship university of the Colorado State University System.The enrollment is approximately 29,932 students, including resident and...
in Fort Collins, Colorado
Fort Collins, Colorado
Fort Collins is a Home Rule Municipality situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, and is the county seat and most populous city of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. Fort Collins is located north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. With a 2010 census...
.
Rubinstein’s first jobs in the computer industry were in Ithaca, where he worked at a local computer retailer and also served as a design consultant to an area compute
Early career
After graduate school, Rubinstein took a job with Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
in Colorado. He spent about two years in the company’s manufacturing engineering division, developing quality-control techniques and refining manufacturing processes. Later, Rubinstein worked on HP workstations.
Rubinstein left HP in 1986 to join a startup, Ardent Computer Corp.
Ardent Computer
The Ardent Computer Corporation was a graphics minicomputer manufacturing company. The systems also used the Intel i860 as graphics co-processors. The company went through a series of mergers and re-organizations and changed names several times as their venture capital funders attempted to find a...
, in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
. While at Ardent, later renamed Stardent, he played an integral role in launching a pair of machines, the Titan Graphics Supercomputer and the Stardent 3000 Graphics Supercomputer.
Steve Jobs and NeXT
In 1990, Apple co-founder Steve JobsSteve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
approached Rubinstein to run hardware engineering at his latest venture, NeXT
NeXT
Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...
. Rubinstein headed work on NeXT’s RISC workstation
NeXT RISC Workstation
The NeXT RISC Workstation, or NRW, was an unreleased computer workstation designed by NeXT during the early 1990s as a successor to the m68k-based NeXTcube and NeXTstation...
– a graphics powerhouse that was never released because in 1993, the company abandoned their floundering hardware business in favor of a software-only approach.
After helping to dismantle NeXT’s manufacturing operations, Rubinstein went on to start another company, Power House Systems. That company, later renamed Firepower Systems, was backed by Canon Inc.
Canon Inc.
is a Japanese multinational corporation that specialises in the manufacture of imaging and optical products, including cameras, camcorders, photocopiers, steppers and computer printers. Its headquarters are located in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan.-Origins:...
and used technology developed at NeXT. It developed and built high-end systems using the PowerPC chip. Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
bought the business in 1996.
Apple years
After the sale, Rubinstein planned on an extended break and travel. But Jobs, at this point an informal consultant to Apple, asked Rubinstein whether he wanted to work for the Cupertino, Calif.Cupertino, California
Cupertino is an affluent suburban city in Santa Clara County, California in the U.S., directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 58,302 at the time of the 2010 census. Forbes...
, computer maker.
Many didn't consider Apple a plum assignment at the time. The company's reputation as an innovator was waning, as were profits - Rubinstein's arrival in February 1997 came on the heels of a year in which Apple lost US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
816 million. But Rubinstein wanted to give it a shot because, he told The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, "Apple was the last innovative high-volume computer maker in the world."
Rubinstein joined Apple as senior vice president of hardware engineering and a member of its executive staff. He was responsible for hardware development, industrial design and low-level software development, and contributed heavily to Apple's technology roadmap and product strategy.
When Rubinstein arrived, his work was cut out for him. The company sold no fewer than 15 product lines, yet its low-end consumer products were widely derided as technological also-rans. Engineering and product development were similarly troubled. Multiple engineering teams worked on the same product independently of each other, and the various lines were built with non-interchangeable parts. Rubinstein fixed both problems.
He also embarked on an extensive cost-cutting plan that axed both research projects and engineers. Expenses were cut in half. After vetting the projects in the pipeline, the one that appeared ready to deliver was the G3
Power Macintosh G3
The Power Macintosh G3, commonly called "beige G3s" or "platinum G3s" for the color of their cases, was a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from November 1997 to January 1999...
, a fast PowerPC-based desktop machine. When it was released at the end of 1997, Apple had what it hadn't in several years: a cutting-edge desktop machine that was on a technological par with Intel-based competitors.
In 1998, Apple's lack of an entry-level consumer desktop was soon to be history. While the G3 was being readied, the company was hatching the idea for the colorful, egg-shaped iMac
IMac
The iMac is a range of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers built by Apple. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its introduction in 1998, and has evolved through five distinct forms....
. Rubinstein assembled a team and then spurred his much-leaner engineering corps to have the product ready to roll in 11 months - a timeline they considered impossible. When it came out, the iMac relied heavily on the USB peripheral standard - not an obvious choice, given that the technology would not be widely available for several years and little used. The iMac also shipped without a floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
drive. Rubinstein was responsible for both decisions.
Future rollouts under Rubinstein's watch included the G4
Power Mac G4
The Power Mac G4 was a series of personal computers that was designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple between 1999 and 2004. They used the PowerPC G4 series of microprocessors. They were heralded by Apple to be the first personal supercomputers, reaching speeds of 4 to 20 Gigaflops...
and G5
Power Mac G5
The Power Mac G5 is Apple's marketing name for models of the Power Macintosh that contains the IBM PowerPC G5 CPU. The professional-grade computer was the most powerful in Apple's lineup when it was introduced, widely hailed as the first 64-bit PC, and was touted by Apple as the fastest personal...
series of Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
es. The machines, while considered technical standouts, were still hampered by a public perception that they were "slower" than similar, Intel-based PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s because their CPUs had lower clock speeds. Rubinstein helped diminish that misconception in a speech following the 2001 rollout of the G4 - and popularized a term, the 'megahertz myth
Megahertz Myth
The megahertz myth, or less commonly the gigahertz myth, refers to the misconception of only using clock rate to compare the performance of different microprocessors...
,' to describe how an Apple running at 867 megahertz could be faster than an Intel processor running at 1.7 gigahertz.
As the Macintosh started becoming successful again, the company began to pursue a strategy that would put the computer at the center of consumers' electronic entertainment. Turning the Mac into a digital hub which would connect with a range of devices formed the basis of Apple's strategy moving forward in the marketplace.
As part of this strategy, Apple developed software to edit videos (iMovie
IMovie
iMovie is a proprietary video editing software application which allows Mac, iPod Touch 4th generation, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and iPad 2 users to edit their own home movies. It was originally released by Apple in 1999 as a Mac OS 8 application bundled with the first FireWire-enabled consumer Apple...
), organize photos (iPhoto
IPhoto
iPhoto is a digital photograph manipulation software application developed by Apple Inc. and released with every Macintosh personal computer as part of the iLife suite of digital life management applications...
), and store and play music (iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
).
Developing the iPod
Due to the relatively low sales of its Mac computer brand, Apple decided to expand its ecosystem in order to increase its consumer awareness. The iPod came from Apple's "digital hub" category, when the company began creating software for the growing market of personal digital devices. Digital cameras, camcorders and organizers had well-established mainstream markets, but the company found existing digital music players "big and clunky or small and useless" with user interfaces that were "unbelievably awful", so Apple decided to develop its own. Even though it was a space with immense market potential, previous products had not enjoyed any notable market penetration.Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
charged Rubinstein with coming up with a portable music player on a rushed, eight-month timetable. It was Rubinstein who recognized the utility of the iPod’s key technology, the tiny, 1.8-inch hard disk
Hard disk
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...
drive on which music is stored; he came across it while on a routine visit to Toshiba
Toshiba
is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
. Engineers there had developed the drive, but were not sure how it could be used. It was Rubinstein who assembled and managed a team of hardware and software engineers to ready the product. The team’s engineers needed to overcome a number of hurdles, including figuring out how to play music off a spinning hard drive for more than 10 hours without wiping out a battery charge. Rubinstein’s production contacts proved invaluable, too; the iPod’s sleek, minimalist design, with its high-gloss, engraveable metal back, was a mass-manufacturing triumph. The success of the first-generation iPod was almost overnight. By 2004 the business became so important to Apple that the iPod was spun off into its own division, which Rubinstein took over.
Other iPod models were released on a regular basis, increasing the device’s capacity, decreasing its size, and adding features including color screens, photo display and video playback. By early 2008, more than 119 million iPods had been sold, making it not only the most successful portable media player on the market today but one of the most popular consumer electronics products of all time.
While Rubinstein’s fingerprints are on the iPod’s development, he was also instrumental in creating a robust secondary market for accessories such as speakers, chargers, docking ports, backup batteries, and other add-ons. That gear, produced by a network of independent companies that came to be known as "The iPod Ecosystem", generates more than $1 billion in annual sales. In the 2007 fiscal year, the iPod generated $8.3 billion in revenue, or about a third of Apple's sales.
In October 2005, Apple announced that Rubinstein would be retiring on March 31, 2006. It was later announced that he would make himself available for up to 20% of his workweek on a consulting basis.
Palm
In 2007, Rubinstein joined Palm, Inc., leading the company's research, development, and engineering. One of his first tasks included winnowing the company's product lines and restructuring R&D teams. He was instrumental in developing the webOS platform and the Palm PrePalm Pre
The Palm Pre is a multimedia smartphone designed and marketed by Palm with a multi-touch screen and a sliding keyboard. The smartphone was the first to use Palm's Linux based mobile operating system, webOS...
. Rubinstein debuted both on January 8, 2009, at the Consumer Electronics Show
Consumer Electronics Show
The International Consumer Electronics Show is a major technology-related trade show held each January in the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Not open to the public, the Consumer Electronics Association-sponsored show typically hosts previews of products and new...
(CES) in Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
. On June 10, 2009, just four days after the successful release of his brainchild, the Palm Pre
Palm Pre
The Palm Pre is a multimedia smartphone designed and marketed by Palm with a multi-touch screen and a sliding keyboard. The smartphone was the first to use Palm's Linux based mobile operating system, webOS...
, Rubinstein was named the CEO of Palm. On April 28, 2010, HP announced plans to purchase Palm for $1.2 billion. Rubinstein is expected to stay with the company.
The Pre first launched on the Sprint
Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel Corporation is an American telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 53.4 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility...
network. Reports at the time of the launch noted that it was a record for Sprint, with 50,000 units sold its opening weekend; sales have subsequently slowed, however, and in February, Palm warned that its products were not selling as quickly as hoped. A follow-up phone, the Palm Pixi
Palm Pixi
The Palm Pixi and Pixi Plus are multimedia smartphones, developed by Palm, which was purchased in 2010 by HP. The device is viewed as a successor to the Palm Centro smartphone and was Palm's second webOS device, after the Palm Pre....
, was announced on September 8, 2009, and released on Sprint on November 15, 2009.
Rubinstein has said that one of Palm’s keys moving forward will be to “bring on more carriers and more regions.” The company launched its Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus phones on Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is one of the largest mobile network operators in the United States. The network has 107.7 million subscribers as of 2011, making it the largest wireless service provider in America....
in January 2010, the same month AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
announced plans to launch a pair of Palm’s webOS devices later in 2010.
Rubinstein’s visibility in the mainstream tech community grew upon joining Palm. He was the featured guest in September 2009 at the first episode of “The Engadget
Engadget
Engadget is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. Though on appearance Engadget functions much like a blog and may be defined as such, much of its editorial content takes the form of an online magazine...
Show,” a web videocast produced by the technology weblog. In December 2009, the magazine Fast Company
Fast Company (magazine)
Fast Company is a full-color business magazine that releases 10 issues per year and reports on topics including innovation, digital media, technology, change management, leadership, design, and social responsibility...
named Rubinstein one of its Geeks of the Year, along with people such as Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
founder Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive and president...
and writer/director/producer J.J. Abrams; Fast Company also named Rubinstein to its list of the “100 most creative people in business."
On July 1, 2011, HP released the webOS-based TouchPad
HP TouchPad
The HP TouchPad is a tablet computer which was developed and designed by Hewlett-Packard. The HP TouchPad was launched on July 1, 2011, in the United States; July 15 in Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany; and August 15 in Australia....
, but its sales were lackluster. On July 11, Rubenstein was replaced in his role with the webOS division and assumed a "product innovation role" elsewhere within HP. On August 18, Hewlett-Packard announced that it would discontinue all hardware devices running webOS.
Affiliations
- Member, National Academy of EngineeringNational Academy of EngineeringThe National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
- Senior Member, IEEE
- Director, Immersion Corp.
- Member, Cornell Alumni Council
- Member, Cornell Silicon Valley Advisors
- Fellow, World Technology Network
- Member, Consumer Electronics AssociationConsumer Electronics AssociationThe Consumer Electronics Association is a standards and trade organization for the consumer electronics industry in the United States. The Consumer Electronics Association is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $173 billion U.S...
Board of Industry Leaders