As Abbott Flocks From Palm To Twitter, Pass Becomes The First Twitter CTO

Last Friday, news hit that Michael Abbott , Palm's head of software and services, the man in charge of its webOS platform, was leaving the company. The news, which broke via a regulatory filing, made waves because it further highlighted Palm's vulnerable position — the company's stock price has been plummeting in recent months and it's now attempting to find a buyer. The same filing revealed Palm's plan to get high level employees to stick around: lucrative retention packages in the case of a sale. Apparently, Abbott wanted nothing to do with that. He must have had a good reason. Now we know why. Abbott will be joining Twitter as the company's new vice president of engineering, we've learned and confirmed with the company. To make room, Twitter's current VP of engineering, Greg Pass , is being promoted to chief technology officer -- becoming the first person to hold the CTO title for the fast-growing company.