Palm's former CEO, before the outfit was bought out by HP, has said that the outfit is definitely not out of the mobile phone race.

Jon Rubinstein, who now operates Palm’s global business unit within H.P., says the company simply “ran out of runway.” He said that Palm could have been made profitable but it could not get big without a lot of investments.

Rubinstein said that the company was flush with cash and healthy carrier relationships, but given how large the competition was, between Apple and Google, in the long-term it was not sustainable. "It felt like the most expeditious outcome was to partner with someone like H.P and move forward,” he said. HP didn’t have a mobile strategy and company like HP needs to be in control of its own strategy, Rubinstein added.

He stressed that it was not game over for Palm and it would get big again as part of HP. It was rapidly working on a new slate of smartphones and tablet computers which would be out next year.