Palm is already filled with former Apple employees, and now they have another one. Chuq Von Rospach, who worked at Apple for several years on various Unix projects, has been hired by Palm to be the Developer Community Manager, he announced on his blog today.

This will be an important job going forward as Palm is set to release its Pre smartphone sometime in the next few months, and it’s a device which has gotten a lot of buzz both from consumers and developers, thanks to a sleek piece of hardware and its new operating system. In fact, the level of buzz is reminiscent of another company: Apple. I asked Von Rospach about his thoughts on joining Palm, and the Apple connection.

“It wasn’t so much that there are ex-Apple people there, but that there are a bunch of really good and talented people there,” Von Rospach told me via email. “That Jon Rubenstein [the former senior vice president of Apple's iPod division and current executive chairman of the board at Palm] is heavily involved was one of the things that caught my eye — but the place is stuffed with lots of really sharp and competent and inventive people, some of whom used to work for Apple. And many worked other places, too, like Adobe and Macromedia, for instance.”

“The technology interested me, the people convinced me it was something I wanted to do,” he continued.

Von Rospach wrote a great retrospective about some of his time at Apple for The Guardian last month. His hiring comes at a time when speculation is building that Apple may turn its lawyers loose on Palm to go after some IP infringement. The thought is that Apple may hold key patents to multi-touch use on mobile devices, something which is a big part of the Palm Pre. Palm has said it owns many patents as well, and will also protect its IP — according to a Palm spokesperson who, yes, used to work for Apple.

Von Rospach will begin at Palm on Feb. 16.

Palm responds to Apple's veiled threat: "we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves"

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

We've been waiting for this. Ever since Tim Cook made his non-specific, veiled threats in response to a direct question about how the Palm Pre "almost directly emulates the kind of touch interface" found on the iPhone, the entire tech community has waited for the next move. Now Lynn Fox, a Palm spokesperson has stepped into the fray. In a response given to Digital Daily and presumably crafted by a team of lawyers over the 2 days since the Apple analyst call, Lynn says the following: 

Palm has a long history of innovation that is reflected in our products and robust patent portfolio, and we have long been recognized for our fundamental patents in the mobile space. If faced with legal action, we are confident that we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves. 

The gauntlet is thrown. Now, will Apple risk the ire of a million new and middle-aged fanboys and crush Palm's Cinderella comeback by forcing the Pre into some state of unreleased legal limbo? Or will Rubinstein and Jobs quietly sort it out over a yoghurt parfait in some strip mall in The Valley? Oh boy, this is going to be good.

Palm did what Nokia, RIM, and Microsoft couldn’t: build a better experience than Apple

from Scobleizer -- Tech geek blogger by Robert Scoble

When I sat down at the beginning of the Palm Pre announcement press conference I was expecting to watch the death of a company. Palm? Give me a break. It would NEVER do anything interesting and Nokia, Microsoft, RIM, and expecially Apple were about to kick it into the deathbin of history.

I was wrong. WAY WAY WAY wrong.

Palm just did what Nokia and Microsoft and RIM couldn’t do: deliver a better experience than Steve Jobs did.

“Give me a break Scoble, you are drinking the shiny new object Koolaid,” I can hear you saying.

This is why I didn’t post a blog about it all day, even though everyone else did. I wanted to let the Koolaid wear off. I went back to the Palm booth again tonight just to make sure what I saw this morning was real.

I learned even more stuff that just blew me away.

From Palm? Give me a break!

Nokia’s devices that I saw last month just suddenly seem so lame.

Why? Well, when you look at the Nokia N97, which will be out at about the same time as the Palm Pre, you see that they also have a nice UI, but it falls apart when you click down into apps and try to do things. Palm doesn’t fall apart. Click down and you keep getting shocked.

Palm’s bet on social networking integration is a game changer. Click into a contact and you see people’s Facebook info and other info from their social networks. That is huge and not many people will get it.

Palm’s web browser is easier to get around than the iPhone’s is. Dave Winer will like some of the touches that were integrated here.

Are you surfing the web and alert comes up? Your web page doesn’t disappear. Really nice touch.

Are you a developer? Everything is based on standard webstuff. Javascript. Et al.

Cut, copy, and paste. Anymore to say?

How Apple centric is the new Palm team? Well, Chris McKillop is director of Software at Palm. He worked on the iPhone team (showed me pictures of me and my son buying iPhones at the Palo Alto store). One of the PR people at Palm did PR at Apple. Jonathan Rubinstein, who runs the Palm Pre team and led off the announcement, was a key person in development of the iPod and lots of people followed him from Apple to Palm, I heard from several people today.

Here’s some videos.

Peter Skillman, director of new product experience at Palm, shows the out of box experience and how the device’s size compares to the iPhone.
A piece of the announcement event today where they showed off some of Palm Pre’s web features.
Here’s another video of Peter showing off what he thinks the coolest things about the Pre are.

Anyway, the bottom line is Palm has a real winner here. It shows that you can never count a company out. Even one that looks like it’s already out of the game.

Ed: Where's the recurring revenue? Will Sprint share? Apps share? Music share?

• Match iPhone cool: Zoom/unzoom, touch accelerometer, Wi-Fi
  
• Beat iPhone: contact integration, simpler Palm Pre apps, better camera, keyboard
• Weakness: Sprint, music
• Unknown: video, execution on delivery

Winner - iPhone and Palm

Loser- Nokia, Motorola, WinMob, RIM 

Palm nabs another $100m from Elevation Partners, takes it to the bridge

from Engadget by Joshua Topolsky

According to reports today, Palm has managed to snag another $100 million from Elevation Partners (the private equity team co-owned by Bono). The new figure gets tacked onto Palm's existing $325 million buy-in from the firm. The previous sum was put towards the struggling handset / software-maker's "strategic recapitalization," and we can only assume this latest infusion is being used for the home stretch into that New OS and those New devices we're expecting seecome CES. It's not completely surprising you'd want to juice your previous large investment, but if Palm's numbers keep shifting downward, it seems unlikely this will be anything other than a Hail Mary. Even if Bono loses $100m in his couch cushions, it doesn't mean Elevation Partners is in for the long haul.