The latest episode in Palm's Developer Podcast series of videos features an "official" appearance by HP's Phil McKinney alongside the regular Palm Developer Podcase hosts Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith. Phil McKinney is vice president and CTO for HP's Personal Systems Group, a unit of HP headed by former palmOne CEO Todd Bradley. Mr. McKinney is responsible for overseeing the HP business unit containing Palm's smartphones and WebOS, among other product lines such as PCs, laptops, mobile devices, displays and calculators.

In the 15 minute video, McKinney, a longtime veteran of the mobile phone industry, discusses HP's interest in Palm stemming from a desire to own the entire end-to-end experience and also firmly restates HP's interest in the smartphone business. One interesting tidbit from the video is McKinney's proclamation of being the "Palm evangelist" within HP and future WebOS formfactors. Other highlights include leaving Palm "as is", the task of educating all of HP's other divisions about the ease of creating apps for WebOS, and a new competition designed to kickstart WebOS interest within HP. And while nothing specific is mentioned, a direct reference is made to WebOS on a tablet or Slate-type device as well as the anticipated applications with apps on printers.

Palm's already small share of the smartphone market has dwindled even further, according to the latest figures released by ComScore. In their most recent Mobile Subscriber Market Share report, covering the period of March-May 2010, ComScore reports that Palm's share of the smartphone pie declined from 5.4% to 4.8%.

While no specific breakdown of devices or total users were released, one can easily speculate that part of Palm's part was comprised by Sprint Pre owners abandoning the webOS ship as their devices completed its first year on the market. These numbers may worsen over the summer months, as Sprint's white-hot Evo 4G just became available on June 4th and Palm has not released any new hardware since the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus in January.

Contrary to the latest market share research, Palm's Pre Plus is still a very popular device, at least in the eyes of Laptop Magazine readers. In fact, it's still sitting on the very top of the smartphone food chain according to Laptop's latest online poll.

Having just completed an extensive shootout of nearly every major Android-based phone across all domestic carriers, Laptop Mag awarded the HTC Incredible on Verizon its top honors, beating out Sprint's new WiMax-equipped Evo and Google's very own Nexus One. The HTC Incredible, however, has just been bested by the Palm Pre Plus (presumably the Verizon version) in a new poll on Laptop Mag's blog.

Verizon Wireless' online store is currently running a phenomenal sale on several Palm-branded Pre and Pixi accessories, all of which include free overnight shipping.

For Pre and Pre Plus users, Verizon is selling a combo pack of the Touchstone dock plus a car charger for $20. While the Touchstone dock is the standard Palm-branded accessory, the car charger is not the sleek Palm version but instead a rather generic Verizon Wireless-branded charger. It appears to have a integrated USB port for recharging an additional device such as an iPod or a Bluetooth headset. For an additional $5, that combo can be expanded with a "wearable pouch" which does not appear to be a Palm-branded accessory. From the product's description online, this is a black horizontal leather pouch with a fixed belt clip.

For Pixi users, the savings are even more substantial. The first combo contains the Touchstone dock plus a Pixi Touchstone-compatible battery cover for $9.99. For an additional $10, the aforementioned vehicle charger can be added to the bundle.

In what is now becoming nearly a regular monthly feature, Tam Hanna of Tam's Palm fame has posted another new bit of information regarding Aceeca's PDA32 Palm OS handheld. The latest turn of events for the delayed but strangely-compelling device indicates that some issues have been resolved and the device is VERY close to shipping (Aceeca's emphasis, not ours). This information comes to Tam by way of an Acceeca employee named Alex.

Additional details gleaned from Alex's comment include that the device has concluded its beta-testing period and has seen some improvements based on tester feedback, including issues with the screen digitizer sensitivity. Additionally, demo units of the PDA32 are soon to be shipping out to members of the press. As we mentioned in our previous article on this subject, a beta tester for the PDA32 that suggested that the device was going to be "..even better than I was hoping for", so here's hoping that the almost five years since the arrival of the Palm TX and Z22 brings some welcome hardware advances for the Garnet faithful.

Donna Dubinsky, the former CEO and co-founder of Palm and Handspring, (now CEO of Numenta) has published an opinion article in the Silicon Valley paper, Mercury News. The piece entitled: The seven lives of Palm computing gives a good history lesson on the many corporate transfers and maneuvers over the course of its nearly 20 year lifetime and wishes the firm well with its new stewards. Dubinsky also gives a good overview of many of Palm Inc.'s accomplishments with a nod to Palm's product culture.

A great product culture requires an ability to reject conventional wisdom. Time and time again, Palm thought deeply about the right trade-offs for users. When Palm created the Palm V, for example, it made the battery not removable to create a thinner and more beautiful product, a highly controversial decision at the time. The product was wildly successful.

A great product culture also tolerates failure. Palm always developed both evolutionary products — safe products with additional features sought by customers — and revolutionary products, riskier products that might require a few iterations before success. It took three generations of the Treo to create a huge hit.

Now that HP has absorbed Palm, the company is wasting no time in moving some newly acquired inventory. While Palm's traditional online store seem to have been shuttered, HP is now promoting a new HP Wireless Central phone outlet.

HP's Wireless Central is currently giving away the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus for nothing more than a two year carrier commitment. That's right, HP is giving away the current lineup of Palm smartphones. Customers can now save a whole penny over the usual going rate with a no charge AT&T or Verizon flavored Pre/Pixi+ of your choice with free activation and other bonus goodies also in the mix. Sprint users can also find deals over the rates at Sprint.com, but customers will still have to fork over some bills; $100 for the standard Pre and $20 for the 1st gen Pixi.

HP today announced it has completed its acquisition of Palm Inc. at a price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash. In a statement, Hewlett-Packard says the the combo gives HP significant headway into one of technology's fastest-growth segments with Palm's innovative webOS platform and family of smartphones, plus a rich portfolio of intellectual property from the smartphone pioneer.

"With webOS, HP will deliver its customers a unique and compelling experience across smartphones and other mobility products," said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. "This allows us the opportunity to fully engage in growing our smartphone family offering and the footprint of webOS."

Else Mobile, the company behind the First Else smartphone prototype, have announced that they are abandoning their hardware intentions. The company has issued a press release, via engadget, stating that the project is likely forever DOA confirming earlier reports of the phones vapory demise.

Due to critical delays in deliveries and the current status of the project, the board has now decided to cease any further investment towards manufacturing of the First ELSE mobile device and to concentrate efforts only on licensing the ELSE Intuition platform and technology in order to realize its potential upside.

The First Else would have been one of the first and only devices we're aware of to ship with a version of Access' Linux Platform. The long rumored device officially debuted last November with a promise of a 2010 2Q ship date which never materialized.

Palm Inc. has been making some generous concessions to its developer community of late and its latest new policy change will likely earn the company some acclaim during its last days of independence. Palm's Developer Blog has announced that Palm Inc. will no longer charge developers a fee for submitting and listing webOS applications in the Palm App Catalog.

According to the post, developers will no longer have to pay the $50 submission fee per app. Palm is even going as far as to refund all fees to devs that were previously collected.

The changelog for what is presumably the next webOS update has been accidentally leaked. EverythingPre has posted a copy of the release notes which were inadvertently posted to Palm's support site before being removed.

The document listed a release date of June 24th. The changes detailed seem relatively minor and primarily include some minor changes to the webOS PDK, some web browser bug fixes and several unmentionable security issues are addressed.