Palm appoints new developer community manager
Palm has appointed Chuq Von Rospach as its new developer community manager, according to a post on his own blog.
He starts work on February 16th, with a focus on the SDK for the new Pre smartphone.
Von Rospach is the latest new Palm hire with a background at Apple, following Jon Rubenstein - formerly senior VP at Apple's iPod division. Von Rospach worked at Apple for more than 18 years, although his most recent job was at Laszlo Systems.
"It wasnt so much that there are ex-Apple people there, but that there are a bunch of really good and talented people there," he tells VentureBeat.
"That Jon Rubenstein is heavily involved was one of the things that caught my eye - but the place is stuffed with lots of really sharp and competent and inventive people, some of whom used to work for Apple.
"And many worked other places, too, like Adobe and Macromedia, for instance. The technology interested me, the people convinced me it was something I wanted to do."
It's clearly an interesting role. There's already plenty of developer buzz around the Pre and its associated webOS - so much so that developers are already organising their own grassroots events to get to grips with it.
Meanwhile, US operator Sprint Nextel has been talking up the Pre - unsurprisingly given that it's the exclusive sales channel for the handset there.
CEO Dan Hesse reckons it's the first true cross between an iPhone and a BlackBerry.
"Its an outstanding business device and its also a whole life consumer device," he says. "Its a combination of a superb touchscreen with a physical keypad, which is, for a heavy emailer and texter, a must. We think its going to be a very successful device."