Ed Colligan cancels the Palm Foleo
by Volker Weber
I have decided to cancel the Foleo mobile companion product in its current configuration and focus all of our energies on delivering out next generation platform and the first smartphones that will bring this platform to market.
Too bad I don't get to play with one. This last minute cancellation leaves me more worried than ever.
Another interesting quote:
We will, of course, continue to develop products in partnership with Microsoft on the Windows Mobile platform, but from our internal platform development perspective, we will focus on only one.
Palm is going to announce a new smartphone a week from now. I don't think it will be based on the new platform, so it can only be a Windows Mobile phone. After this announcement I don't expect Palm to come out with any new devices on the old Palm OS platform. Unless they cannot deliver the new platform this year.
Comments
I'm not sure whether to be impressed that 'senior management' were able to grasp the nettle at the 11th hour and 'do the right thing', or be flabbergasted at the comedy of errors that simply *must* be behind the fact that this development went as far as it did.....
Palm were *so* good with those original Pilots, but I feel lost their way with the later products, especially those lumpen Treo phone things...
For my money, Psion stuff was simply years ahead of the competition (they had the MC200/400 machines - err....Foleo, anyone? - in 1990 for goodness sake), but the genetics of their great designs have all but disappeared from Symbian's offerings now...
As I read more about the E90, during the interminable wait for its (error free, mass availability) arrival, I see that it's less and less the machine I hoped it would be. I find myself pining for the old Psion 5MX more and more. If only the 5MX had bluetooth, I could just have a simple 3G phone and enjoy the Psion for the superb PDA it (still) is!
This was actually good news. Palm knew they dud on their hands. The list of negatives against the Folio were simply too much to overcome. It was pricey, didn't work with corporate e-mail systems, was an island in terms of application development; and most of all it was a solution to a problem that not many people have.
Palm's short term priority should be getting their current products up to technical snuff. (Throw hardware at the problem.) Mainly add WiFi to the current line-up. Adding some decent storage capabilities would also make them a little more competitive and buy them some time (but not much). On the short-term software front, they should work with Opera to get a decent mobile browser. They should also purchase Go Treo Software, which sells a whole bunch of Treo related software utilities to make up for some of the device's shortcomings.
Long term, they need to develop that long-awaited successor to the original Palm OS and recreate the entire platform from scratch.
John - I think you should take a series look at the Nokia E90. This article should be of interest to you:
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/From_Psion_Series_5_to_Nokia_E90-the_Times_they_are_a-changin.php
Here is the link Henry wanted to supply.
Vowe, You're a blogger and a gentleman.
