SiliconBeat

Now that I’ve had time to digest the news of Hewlett-Packard’s $1.2 billion acquistion of Palm, I’ve been thinking more about the man who sits at the heart of this deal:

Jon Rubinstein.

He’s hardly a household name in Silicon Valley. But in many ways, he’s got more on the line here than anyone else in the deal on a personal level. Yet for the most part, he’s been oddly silent since the deal was announced, except for a short interview with All Things D’s Kara Swisher.

But it’s worth remembering that the entire plan to reinvent palm revolved around Rubinstein. In my column over the weekend, I gave Palm credit for taking the risky path of trying to reboot itself. As I was researching that column, I was reminded of something that I had forgotten: The deal to get Elevation Partners to invest $325 million in Palm was all contingent on Rubinstein joining Palm.

No Rubinstein, no deal. That’ pretty extraordinary. I can’t think of another deal in Silicon Valley that was so dependent on the participation of a single individual. And it shows just how deeply the folks at Elevation believed in Rubinstein, who while at Apple was credited with developing the iPod before leaving in 2006.

So how did their $325 million man do? And did his stock go up or down after three years at Palm?

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The news (or at least the leaks and rumors) surrounding Palm seem to be only getting worse. Today, reports have emerged that Asian wireless companies HTC and Huawei declined to bid on Palm. The speculation now is that Chinese PC maker Lenovo is the front runner.

At the same time, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein insisted the company could remain independent. In an interview with the Financial Times, Rubinstein suggested Palm might license its WebOS, the mobile operating system that runs the Palm Pre and Pixi, to other companies. But how much would you pay to license an OS from a company that seems caught in a death spiral?

No, it seems a sale of some sort is more likely. When you start blaming your partners for your troubles, as Rubinstein did in the FT piece, things aren’t likely to improve any time soon. Palm has Goldman Sachs and Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners on the case to find a buyer. And I have to believe there has to be a price at which Palm would be valuable to someone.

After all, Palm has a solid mobile operating system, although it’s struggled to attract developers to match the applications ecosystems of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android platform. But I’m guessing in part that developers are reluctant to jump in with two feet and create things for a company with such an uncertain future. A sale to someone with deep pockets could turn that around.

Here are my thoughts about who is left in the running, or should be:

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