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Tuesday September 4, 2007
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 Just before the end of business today, I got an email saying that Palm had killed the Foleo, the firm's much anticipated mobile companion device and, according to Palm Found Jeff Hawkins, his best idea ever. I thought it was just Segan bouncing another inflammatory column idea past me. But no, this was for real.
The announcement came in the form a blog post by Palm CEO Ed Colligan. No doubt this was a tough post to write, but he tried to be optimistic:
Jeff Hawkins and I still believe that the market category defined by Foleo has enormous potential. When we do Foleo II it will be based on our new platform, and we think it will deliver on the promise of this new category. We're not going to speculate now on timing for a next Foleo, we just know we need to get our core platform and smartphones done first.
Yeah, this really wouldn't be a good time to speculate about the next version's release date--the original Foleo isn't even back in its box yet.
I was never a huge fan of the Foleo, I just never believed that I would be able to really leave my laptop at home. Maybe if I got the chance to test it in the Lab, I would have changed my mind. No chance of that now. Anyway, anything that distracts Palm from finishing its next generation handheld platform probably isn't worth the company's time. My Treo 650 is getting very old. And Windows Mobile is looking newer and newer all the time.
Of course, bringing a product this far along only to abort its delivery is expensive. Palm is going to take a $10 million charge this quarter to spend on the Foleo's funeral expenses. That is a lot of money, but the truth is, the company probably would have lost more trying to bring the Foleo to market as it was.
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September 5, 2007 4:05 PM
Wow, that was a surprise. Considering how much Palm had touted the Foleo as the next generation of peripherals for them, and how this would turn everything around for Palm, I'm kind of sad that this had to happen.
A lot of people were pinning very high hopes on Palm when they said they were making their announcement; I was one of them. I was disappointed when the Foleo was that announcement; it was just too expensive to slide into the smartphone market and it required a smartphone to work, and it was expensive enough to touch the low-end laptop market. The idea of an instant-on ultralight that used the abilities of your smartphone was a great idea, but I'd rather see those features incorporated into a laptop of some stripe.
Still. This just adds more haze to Palm's future - where are they trying to go? What are they trying to do? When will they get around to updating the Palm OS to compete with the big boys?
September 5, 2007 10:48 PM
With all the negative buzz around the device I think Palm made the right call pulling the plug. The Foleo was destined to flop. I was interested in the device until I learned that it didn't even have the Palm OS on board. Instead of literally thousands of software titles available (or at least hunrdrds) at launch it would have had only a small handfull. I couldn't believe it when Palm annoumced they had finally found someone to develop a PIM for the Foleo. Excuse me? Isn't that Palms area of expertise. The first few Palm devices were nothing but electronic day planners. If they relaunch the Foleo with a new version of Palm OS on steroids I think they will have a winner. They should partner with Data Viz for the most powerful version of Docs ToGo yet (in cell editing, support for merged cells, and graghics display for example). This coupled with true instant on capabillity will make it truly viable to leave your laptop at home. In fact don't market it as "Not a laptop" call it a Palm OS laptop.In fact why not throw in a bay that lets you switch between a second battery and an optical drive. If you can watch a movie on the thing it makes it that much easier to leave your other laptop at home, or not own one at all.