Ex-Palm CEO Carl Yankowski tapped to head Ambient Devices

It's been a while since we've heard from Carl Yankowski, the former CEO of Palm and Reebok -- not that we blame him for lying low these past few years, after guiding Palm through its 2000 spinoff from 3Com to a $30 billion market cap, only to see inventory of devices like the Palm V and IIIe pile up in warehouses and the company fall to less than five percent of its former value a year later. That's a hard act to follow, but it looks like he'll be getting a shot as the new CEO of Ambient Devices, makers of the Orb and other friendly glowing information appliances. Yankowski replaces David Rose, who founded the company in 2001 commercialize tech developed at the MIT Media Lab, and he sounds like he's ready to hand the company over, saying "With Carl leading the team, I am confident that our original vision for ambient information everywhere will become a reality for millions of consumers in the near future." What's interesting is that Carl's Wikipedia entry was last edited in November, and it says he's been running Ambient since August -- perhaps the puppetmaster has finally stepped on stage, eh?

[Via News.com]

[Tin Marin @ Jan 2nd 2008 6:22PM]

Wasn't this the freak that dressed in all-black 'a la Extreme Jobs' and had himself called a Prophet or something while he sent Palm to freaking hell? I wouldn't trust this man a bag of scorpions.

[Tamer Brad @ Jan 2nd 2008 6:43PM]

That is an untrustworthy set of lips.

[cmdwedge @ Jan 2nd 2008 7:25PM]

I literally bothered hitting the Comments section to say that. That man has the softest lips I've ever seen on a dude.

Freakin' weird.

[Au Thread @ Jan 2nd 2008 7:11PM]

> Wasn't this the freak that dressed in all-black 'a la Extreme Jobs'
> and had himself called a Prophet or something...

ALMOST all-black:

http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/8960/#125127

Lol!

[BigTeebo @ Jan 2nd 2008 8:05PM]

Carl Yankowski hates you.

[BatteryAcid @ Jan 2nd 2008 8:47PM]

RIP Ambient Devices
PS. I agree those lips look wicked soft.

[Apple Kicks Ass @ Jan 2nd 2008 9:54PM]

Having been at Palm for the past many many years I can tell you Carl was not the one to run it into the ground, it was Eric Benhamou who started the down fall (just look what he did to 3Com for his other handiwork), then Todd Bradley (just an Ops guy, no vision), and finally Ed Colligan (a nice guy but not a CEO) is finishing the job. Their only hope is Elevation Partners and the one secret product that Ed mentioned.

[keithwwalker @ Jan 3rd 2008 12:02AM]

How do dicks him that get jobs like that?!?

[sam @ Jan 3rd 2008 9:42AM]

they suck a lot of it with those soft soft lips

[Foolme Twice @ Jan 3rd 2008 7:34AM]

> ...Their only hope is Elevation Partners and the one secret product that Ed mentioned.

Oh boy!

A NEXT Next Great Thing!