Shane Robison is both HP's Chief Strategy Officer and its Chief Technology Officer – putting his in charge of both M&A and R&D. Photo: HP.

Hewlett-Packard's Shane Robison is one of my favorite guys to chat with in Silicon Valley.

As chief strategy officer and chief technology officer for the top-ranked tech company on the Fortune 500, Robison doesn't just have a great sense of where tech M&A is going, he's in the driver's seat. He's also a savvy executive. Consider that he's managed the big picture at HP (HPQ) under two very different bosses in Carly Fiorina and current CEO Mark Hurd.

So I was glad to get Robison on the phone for a few minutes on Wednesday, just after HP dropped the news that it's planning to buy Palm (PALM) for $1.2 billion. More