HTC’s European executive director Paul Ghent is defecting to to Palm (NSDQ: PALM) as sales VP for EMEA. Ghent had helped lead HTC’s efforts to badge phones with its own logo, rather than just let carriers rename the devices, MobileToday says. The move comes with G1 having launched in Europe, albeit with some functional limitations, and with Palm rolling out its own new Pre smartphone. Ghent will be replaced by Dave Catt in the interim.