"In 1997 the former Hewlett-Packard engineer was asked by Apple’s founder, Steven P. Jobs, to lead the hardware engineering division at the company, which was then struggling. Apple was wallowing in financial losses and the Mac’s appeal was waning. Mr. Rubinstein agreed, and over the next nine years he and his team of engineers breathed new life into the company by helping develop the iMac and the iPod.Those experiences should serve him well as he seeks to resuscitate Palm, whose roots in Silicon Valley go back to the PalmPilot, the revolutionary handheld computer, and the Treo, which turned heads as one of the first smartphones.In recent years Palm lost its way. Its share of the smartphone market has been halved to about 16.9 percent over the last two years. First, Research in Motion found the sweet spot of business users with its BlackBerry. More recently, Apple grabbed consumers’ fancy with the iPhone.Palm has tried to innovate beyond the five-year-old Treo with little effect. It announced with great fanfare last year that it would build the Foleo, a cross between a smartphone and notebook computer, only to cancel the project three months later. While cellphone makers like Samsung, LG and R.I.M. brought out products to compete with the iPhone, Palm has told Treo loyalists and investors to be patient. They will need to be. Palm’s stock price is down 90 percent since its high in March 2000. " Read more here: