Palm Picks Up Ex-MeeGo Head, WebOS 2.0 Coming Soon?
Well, what do you know? It's the executive shuffle in the mobile world!
It sure looks like fun, and according to All Things D, the same man that
designed last month as the head of Nokia's MeeGo division is now an
employee of Palm. It seems like a round-robin of high-level executives,
but we aren't too surprised. Ari Jaaksi has a track record in the
industry that few others have, and Palm is definitely in need of
top-tier help if they hope to seriously rival Android, iOS and the other
great smartphone platforms on the market.
It's unclear if Ari Jaaksi's departure was simply to fill a role at Palm, but it's likely that the two were in talks beforehand. With Palm under HP now, the company has more resources than ever before, and the report notes that Ari has been hired on at Palm as senior vice president of webOS at Hewlett-Packard’s Palm division. That's a pretty significant role, and he'll probably have his hands in a lot of the things that will determine the future of Palm in the smartphone arena.
His role will officially begin next month, and he will be moving to the Bay Area of California to head up the WebOS engineering team. Ari has said publicly in the past that he likes his Palm Pre, and he'll also have some company joining him at Palm. Victoria Coleman, who recently headed up Samsung’s R&D Center in San Jose, is reportedly joining the Palm payroll too. She'll be responsible for overseeing platform and app development for future generations of WebOS.
Wait, future generations of WebOS? Now that sounds promising! Up until now, we haven't heard anything notable about the future of WebOS. It has been stuck at 1.4.x for months now, with no real proof or confirmation that WebOS 2.0 would ever hit the market. Is this the first credible stance that another version is in the works? Hopefully the new staff gets it polished up and out before the holidays.
It's unclear if Ari Jaaksi's departure was simply to fill a role at Palm, but it's likely that the two were in talks beforehand. With Palm under HP now, the company has more resources than ever before, and the report notes that Ari has been hired on at Palm as senior vice president of webOS at Hewlett-Packard’s Palm division. That's a pretty significant role, and he'll probably have his hands in a lot of the things that will determine the future of Palm in the smartphone arena.
His role will officially begin next month, and he will be moving to the Bay Area of California to head up the WebOS engineering team. Ari has said publicly in the past that he likes his Palm Pre, and he'll also have some company joining him at Palm. Victoria Coleman, who recently headed up Samsung’s R&D Center in San Jose, is reportedly joining the Palm payroll too. She'll be responsible for overseeing platform and app development for future generations of WebOS.
Wait, future generations of WebOS? Now that sounds promising! Up until now, we haven't heard anything notable about the future of WebOS. It has been stuck at 1.4.x for months now, with no real proof or confirmation that WebOS 2.0 would ever hit the market. Is this the first credible stance that another version is in the works? Hopefully the new staff gets it polished up and out before the holidays.
