The Palm Foleo is dead. R.I.P.
Palm has canceled the Foleo, its Linux-based quasi-laptop device that was designed to be a mobile companion for smart phones (that is, Palm’s smart phones).
According to a blog post from Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm Inc., the company instead will be focusing all its efforts on creating a next-generation development platform and UI for all Palm smartphone devices. He wrote,
“Because we were nearly at the point for shipping Foleo, this was a very tough decision. Yet I am convinced this is the right thing to do. Foleo is based on second platform and a separate development environment, and we need to focus our efforts on one platform. Our own evaluation and early market feedback were telling us that we still have a number of improvements to make Foleo a world-class product, and we can not afford to make those improvements on a platform that is not central to our core focus. That would not be right for our customers or for our developer community.“
Frankly, I can’t shed a tear for the Foleo. I spent some time with one at LinuxWorld (there wasn’t much else to do there), and was underwhelmed with the Foleo itself — and with the concept. The idea that a business user would want a 2.5-pound $600 subnotebook “companion,” instead of a real notebook PC, to carry in addition to a smartphone didn’t make sense.
According to the company’s description of the Foleo development platform, posted just about a month ago, here are the apps that were to be installed on the device:
Full list of 3rd party applications:
-Astraware Limited provides two games for the new Foleo – Sudoku and Solitaire – with additional games to follow.
-Avvenu has created the Avvenu Access ‘n Share service for the Foleo so users can access, enabling users to share digital content stored on their work or home PCs, untethered and over-the-air.
-Bluefire provides Foleo customers security for mobile data-in-transit. The VPN software client easily fits in with existing network infastructures and configurations, and functions across Wi-Fi, LAN and cellular networks.
-DataViz is providing the latest addition of Documents To Go, giving Foleo customers the ability to create, view and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint compatible files on their Foleo mobile companion.
-LogMeIn is bringing remote PC access capability to the Foleo, providing instant, secure connections between remote PCs over the web – enabling easy desktop remote control, data backup and file sharing.
-MotionApps’ mDayscape Personal Information Manager applications lets Foleo customers manage calendar, contacts and tasks on their devices and synchronizes with a Treo smartphone.
-Opera provides Foleo customers with the user-friendly Opera web browser, offering intelligent navigation features and support for advanced Web 2.0 applications using Ajax.
-SixApart gives Foleo users access to SixApart’s wide range of blogging services including Vox, LiveJournal, Typepad and MoveableType.
-TealPoint offers Foleo customers a full suite of new security, entertainment and productivity applications including TealSafe, TealPaint, TealDiet, SudokuAddict and ShortCircuit, with more applications to follow.
Foleo wasn’t compelling. If you saw the device, I’m sure you agree.