HP exec explains why he left

HP's newly departed Jon Rubinstein has explained his reasons for going in an interview Friday. He clarified to The Verge that he had planned to leave not long after HP bought Palm and agreed to stay one to two years, both to help transition webOS to HP and out of affinity with Personal Systems Group head Todd Bradley. Whether or not the TouchPad succeeded was incidental, as Rubinstein had already decided beforehand that he wouldn't stay permanently.

The former Apple VP wouldn't get into depth about why he thought webOS hardware didn't pan out, but did say that HP "wasn't in good enough shape" to keep webOS going when HP took over. Rubinstein noted that HP's rapidly revolving CEO position, where Mark Hurd was ousted over a scandal and saw both a temporary leadership as well as the brief tenure of Leo Apotheker, created its own problems.

He was proud of moving webOS as far as it did and that it helped signal where the industry was going.

Rubinstein hinted that he would still be working in the technology industry, but that he was be repeating what he did after leaving Apple and was staying in Mexico to relax as well as decide what his next course of action would be. A return to Apple is informally considered doubtful, as is working at Apple's once time partner turned competitor Google.

By Electronista Staff

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industry, gadgets, HP, Palm, mobile phones, Apple, webOS, Jon Rubinstein