Jon Rubinstein leaves HP

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

iPod engineering pioneer and former Palm CEO who was the face of webOS has left HP. The official quote from Hewlett and Packard is, "Jon has fulfilled his commitment to HP. We wish him well."

It seems Rubinstein's career has come full circle. He started his career at HP as a young and talented computer science and electrical enginnering graduate right out of Colorado State University. Rubinstein found his way back in HP many years later when, as then CEO of Palm, he was brought on board once Palm was acquired for 1.2 billion.

After HP's failure to continue development of webOS and its subsequent and sudden stoppage of the mobile product portfolio inherited from Palm, Rubinstein was relegated to a minor developmental role after webOS was put into an open source distribution.

Video: During better days: Jon Rubinstein unveils the Palm Pre at CES 2009

Rubinstein had a contractual obligation with HP to complete a 12-24 month commitment post-acquisition. while it is reported that  Rubinstein doesn’t have any plans so far, he stated that he is “going to take a well deserved break after four and a half years of developing webOS.”

Steve Jobs and Jon Rubinstein at Apple's iPod Nano Launch - Photo ReutersPrior to Palm, Rubinstein gained fame for being part of the team that developed the iPod, which was the product that started Apple on the path to incredible growth and innovation.

Without the iPod, it is doubtful that there would have been an iPhone, an iPad and the success they generated for Apple.

Rubinstein was also part of a select group of insiders called the NeXT-ers, the elite team of engineers and designers that Steve Jobs surrounded himself with during his brief and unsuccessful second computer company venture NeXT Computers.

The NeXT-ers, including Rubinstein made up the team that cut Apple's 15 product line to four (at the time) and helped replace an ageing OS 9 with the NeXTstep codebase that eventually evolved into OS X.

While credited with having helped create the iPod and the iPod's accessory ecosystem, Rubinstein was also a genius at streamlining products, finding the right features as well as getting rid of ageing technology and standards, this less is more approach is something that Apple still adheres to today.

Where is Rubinstein off to next? We can think of a few struggling tech companies that might benefit with a man of his experience at the helm.