Donna Dubinsky Resigning from Palm's Board
Donna Dubinsky, former Palm CEO and one of the original founders, is planning to resign from her seat on Palm's board of directors. Elevations recent additional $100 million equity deal also included the right for the investment group to appoint an additional director for election on Palm's Board.
Palms recent 8-K SEC filing on the matter, states that the board wishes to maintain its current size and Donna Dubinsky offered to resign immediately in advance of the election. The filing states that Ms. Dubinsky's offer to resign as a director was not the result of any disagreement.
In Donna's place, Elevation has nominated Rajiv Dutta for election to the Board. Mr. Dutta recently retired as the President of eBay Marketplaces and Executive Vice President of eBay Inc. in October 2008 and as a member of eBay's board of directors in July 2008.
Palm's Board is expected to meet shortly to consider Ms. Dubinsky's offer to resign and Mr. Dutta's election to the Board.
About Donna Dubinsky
From Palm's Board Committee bio:
Ms. Dubinsky was a co-founder of Handspring and the Chief Executive Officer and a director since the company's founding in July 1998. She served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Palm Computing, Inc. from June 1992 to July 1998. From 1982 to 1991, she was with Claris Corporation, a subsidiary of Apple Computer, Inc., and with Apple Computer, Inc., where she served in a number of logistics, sales and marketing positions, most recently as Vice President International of Claris from 1987 to January 1991. Ms Dubinsky is also a trustee of the Computer History Museum. She holds a B.A. degree in history from Yale University and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
Ms. Dubinsky currently serves as the CEO of Numenta, the company she co-founded with Jeff Hawkins in 2005 to commercialize his ideas on technology derived from Hawkins' research in neuroscience and brain theory.
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Fare thee well, Queen of the Ringer Switch
http://www.treocentral.com/content/Stories/616-1.htm
I was curious to how the idea of a ringer switch cameup, so I asked PalmOne, and Chris Cadwell, Director of Product Marketing, responded. As the story goes, Donna Dubinsky, the co-founder of Palm and Handspring, "hated having someone's PDA or cellphone ring or sound an alert during a meeting. It distracted her, and drove her up the wall." Donna's immediate solution to the problem was to enact a $1 fine whenever a phone or PDA went off.It was under these condtions that Handspring engineers designed the Visorphone. During one design meeting, "Jeff Hawkins, [inventor of the Palm Pilot, Palm and Handspring co-founder], said he wanted a way to turn off the ringer and other sounds quickly, and a slider switch just seemed like the obvious idea. I do not remember who came up with the slider idea initially, it may have been Jeff himself, but honestly the team didn't realize that we were doing anything unique or different at the time - such was our inexperience with cell phones back then! It was just obvious to us that this was needed, so we did it. What really surprised us, I think, was realizing later that other cell phones didn't have this feature, and moreover, I continue to be surprised, given how useful that little switch is, that no company I know of has copied it!"
Cadwell ended, "So as far as I know we've never considered getting rid of it. Most of us use it often (even now that Donna isn't here anymore) and we do get lots of positive feedback from our customers about this feature."
Long live the ringer switch!
Good luck, Donna!
Now they will go on to conquer the field of intelligence algorithms.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
HA HA HA!
HA HA HA!
HA HA HA!
Oh, my sides hurt!
HA HA HA!
HA HA HA!
HA HA HA!
Snort!
Giggle.
Maybe they should read (for the first time?) some scholarly Computer Science work from, say, the 1970s first.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
And she pretty much killed off Handspring with this one announcement.
The last known classic PDA user.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
RE: Good luck, Donna!
Nope, she just saw the writing on the wall.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
Maybe she did that again.
Like the CFO.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
RE: Good luck, Donna!
RE: Good luck, Donna!
RE: Good luck, Donna!
- http://tinyurl.com/numentabldg
She probably isn't dedicating a whole lot of time to it even though she's "CEO"; the type of work she'd have to do would be, like, fund raising at this point in time, right? Calling in (up?) her venture capital chums and shootin' the breeze. She can do that from Stanford.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
Yeah, and your contribution to humanity is ... what, exactly? Annoying snark on a website? Assjack.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
Nope, she just saw the writing on the wall.
Guess you weren't around at the time. It did hurt Handspring quite a bit.
The last known classic PDA user.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
RE: Good luck, Donna!
The Springboard situation was certainly a poorly-managed disaster, but even then PDAs were clearly headed for the dustbin. They were smart to jump on the smartphone bandwagon - it's what got them re-acquired by Palm, after all, who themselves could see where things were headed.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
Considering the source, the irony is incredible.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
And the best part is I can drop in my RAM & HD upgrades from my 1000H without missing a beat. I predict 2010 (not '09) will be the year of the netbook!
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?
RE: Good luck, Donna!
hkk - how much do you spend on tech per year? seems like a lot. or am i just a cheap bastard?
RE: Good luck, Donna!
Damn it, now I'm going to start bitching for an edit feature.
-Bosco
m105 -> NX70v -> NX80v -> iPhone -> iPhone 3G
RE: Good luck, Donna!
For a brief moment a week or three ago, there was a "MOD" icon up there near the poster name on all posts; I'd humbly suggest an Edit function is coming "Real Soon Now".
[also awhile back I was invited to participate in a beta of the new website but never got the followup email telling me how to do so!]
RE: Good luck, Donna!
Damn it, now I'm going to start bitching for an edit feature.
Please don't. Most of the time the meaning of the typos is obvious enough. Personally, I find it annoying on sites where people are going back and editing content after the fact to change the meaning of what they said. It's the coward's way out, but if editing is available, it happens.
I suspect I'm in the minority on this one though. Whatever.
"twrock is infamous around these parts" (from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating)
RE: Good luck, Donna!
A simple Good Luck wish from me to Donna mutates into THIS!!
Well, I might as well mutate it further ...
hkk: Yeah, I want to molest that keyboard. The MacBook has like ESP for my fingertips. All the keys are were my fingers *want* to land.
Gekko: Enema of The Google State -
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/article.php/3801006/Googles-Business-Model-YOU-Are-the-Product.htm
RE: Good luck, Donna!
i dont want to be live tracked by anyone. i dont want anyone to know where i'm at and what im doing and what im buying. maybe the kids do - but i dont.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
Please don't. Most of the time the meaning of the typos is obvious enough. Personally, I find it annoying on sites where people are going back and editing content after the fact to change the meaning of what they said. It's the coward's way out, but if editing is available, it happens.
Could it be coded so that an edit feature is available up to 10 minutes after the original post? This site's comment board seems like a custom job, so I would imagine it's possible. That would seem like a reasonable compromise.
-Bosco
m105 -> NX70v -> NX80v -> iPhone -> iPhone 3G
RE: Good luck, Donna!
"twrock is infamous around these parts" (from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating)
RE: Good luck, Donna!
If someone makes a poster-bashing reply to a post that needs editting, then the original poster changes the post, tough. A post "belongs" to the poster - let them edit it to their hearts content.
The poster-bashing poster can go back and change HIS post, too.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
I see no reason whatsoever to limit an editting capability.
That doesn't surprise me. I don't doubt that you have already determined the "right" way of doing it, so there can be "no reason whatsoever" to even consider that there just might be some reason for limiting editing capability.
"twrock is infamous around these parts" (from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating)
RE: Good luck, Donna!
I'll be sure to try to not do that next time.
Sorry.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
Go tw!!
I think I will now celebrate with some ... pizza!
RE: Good luck, Donna!
PIC desperately needs a makeover. i just looked at a 7 year chart of technological advancement of PIC vs. PalmOS and, eerily, they look exactly alike. both flat lines.
RE: Good luck, Donna!
By the way, recessions blow. Finding a job after graduation has proved a more difficult task than using Versamail.
-Bosco
m105 -> NX70v -> NX80v -> iPhone -> iPhone 3G
RE: Good luck, Donna!
RE: Good luck, Donna!
When someone voices an opinion that leaves the door open for further data and other opinions to still be considered, there is room for intelligent discussion. Abosco and I had such an interchange. And I quickly saw that his opinion was better than my own.
When someone states emphatically that there is "no reason whatsoever", they have demonstrated their closed mindedness. You have done that. I responded with sarcasm to that closed mind.
Whereas I am very willing to have discussions with people who demonstrate an openness to honest discussion, I have no patience for you at this point. I believe that you have an agenda, and you know exactly what you are doing, and you do it with intent. If I am wrong about that, then (1) I apologize for my attitude and my sarcasm, and (2) you need help.
"twrock is infamous around these parts" (from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating)
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