Palm's chief executive, Carl Yankowski, has resigned from the
company.
Chairman Eric Benhamou will take over until a replacement is found.
Palm, which has suffered in the market downturn, has also announced
that it has reached the final steps of an internal separation into
two businesses.
"Palm did very well with consumers, but they let the business side
go soft," said Martin Reynolds, an analyst at Gartner. "Yankowski
had a consumer focus, so this puts Palm back on the footing to
chase business users again."
The appointment of a new chief executive could help the company
re-focus on the enterprise, which could mean new applications,
services and technologies geared towards business users. Microsoft
and its key Pocket PC partners, including Compaq, have received
positive reviews from enterprise customers and taken some of the
limelight off Palm in this area.
Palm is currently made up of two business groups: a Solutions
Group, which designs the Palm handheld line, and the Platform
Solutions Group, which develops the Palm operating system and
licenses it to other vendors.
As part of the company's reorganisation plans, the Platform
Solutions Group is expected to become an internal Palm subsidiary,
operating independently, by the end of this year.
The split has changed Yankowski's role. He said in a statement that
the chief executive role "no longer matches my aspirations",
although he did not reveal his future plans.
An executive council, with Benhamou at its helm, will oversee Palm
until a new chief executive is found. Other council members include
David Nagel, Platform Solutions Group chief executive; Todd
Bradley, company executive vice-president and chief operating
officer of the Solutions Group; and Judy Bruner, Palm's senior
vice-president and chief financial officer.
Palm's tumultuous year may have forced Yankowski to reflect on his
role in the company, said Kevin Burden, an analyst at IDC.
"I think it's a recognition that Palm probably wasn't moving in the
right direction in the past year," Burden said. "It might have been
a revelation on [Yankowski's] side to see that he is not the person
to take Palm in the direction it needs to be going.
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