Eric Schmidt quickly showed off the Nexus S and gave some info about Gingerbread at the Web 2.0 Summit recently and, while he didn't have any new products to discuss, Palm's Jon Rubinstein gave a similarly enlightening talk.  Palm isn't in the best situation right now in the smartphone market, but Rubinstein believes that the company should be on the top of the heap, saying that "by birthright, Palm should have owned the smartphone market" because they were behind the Palm Pilot and the Treo, but that the company "just lost its way."  When asked about Palm's merger with HP and why he gave it the go-ahead, Rubinstein explained that both companies needed something that the other had to offer: Palm needed resources, HP needed a "strong mobile strategy" that would help them control where they were going.  As for Palm's future, it appears that we can expect "some smartphones" and a "great tablet." “If you are a webOS aficionado out there, be patient. The pool of webOS devices is going to grow very dramatically over the next 12 to 18 months,”  says Rubinstein.

We've always kind of assumed that there would be a good deal of new webOS products in the near future, but it's always great to get confirmation from the big boss.  Still, I would've liked to get some actual details about these devices, especially that tablet.  Until more information comes to light, I guess we'll have to be content with the Palm Pre 2 and continue to go over webOS code to search for new product names.

Via IntoMobile, All Things D (Image via LogicHP)