A Message to Palm Customers, Partners and Developers

As many of you are aware, we are in the process of building our next generation software platform. We are very excited about how this is coming together. It has a modern flexible UI, instant performance, and an incredibly simple and elegant development environment. We are working hard on this platform and on the first smartphone that will take advantage of it.

In the course of the past several months, it has become clear that the right path for Palm is to offer a single, consistent user experience around this new platform design and a single focus for our platform development efforts. To that end, and after careful deliberation, I have decided to cancel the Foleo mobile companion product in its current configuration and focus all of our energies on delivering our next generation platform and the first smartphones that will bring this platform to market. 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.

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.

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.

I would like to thank our customers for their interest in Foleo. I know there will be disappointed folks who were looking forward to carrying a Foleo for all their mobile computing needs. I am certainly one of them. I would also like to thank the developers who have supported our Foleo efforts. They have been loyal to Palm and have worked hard to deliver some compelling solutions on the Foleo platform. I know that they will understand that the right thing to do for the long run is to focus on one platform that will live for years, rather than invest energy in a one-off solution. We will make every effort to make sure we bring our developers forward to our next generation platform.

This decision will require us to take a limited charge of less than $10 million dollars to our earnings. This is a lot of money, but it is a small price relative to the costs that would be required to support two platforms going forward. This decision is in the best interest of our customers, our team, our products and our shareholders. I hope this renewed focus at Palm will allow us to deliver more compelling solutions to our core smartphone market, and it will allow us to position ourselves for the long run around one Palm experience.

-Ed Colligan, CEO

Comments

[Bob]

Well, someone at Palm has finally come to their senses. Hopefully this clarity can expand beyond this decision, as you guys have made a LOT of boners, especially over the past few years since buying out Handspring saved your company with the Treo. Abandoning your die-hard Treo and PDA customers to chase the pipedream of the Foleo was just seen as plain arrogance by many of us. We had to live with a Treo 650 that had insufficient RAM and DBcache, then a Treo 700p that couldn't stay paired to a BT headset, then you dump a Treo 755 on us with less battery life, awful MiniSD card format and NO RESET HOLE... Distracting yourselves with this "mobile companion" (sorry - marketing hype excluded it's basically a UMPC linux laptop to consumers) was an extremely counterproductive move. Not knowing what compelled you to pursue it I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but kudos to whoever it was that screamed loud enough to put the brakes on this runaway train before it hit the wall like the Lifedrive.

[adam]

I'm sad to see the folio cancledd IN A WAY...

I don't think it was good the way palm had it angled.

the hardware was great though.

you should consider releasing the folio as a stand alone palmtop. I know if it were at a good price, I'd buy it, and that postion would make sense for the product, that doesn't mean it couldn't still work with phones, but it wouldn't be required.

as a programmer, I'm always on the look out for a small, instant on device that I could program on. folio would ahve been great, but alas. for now I suppose I'll just hack an ipod touch and place an apache server on it to do some minor web coding,... but the folio would have been more elegant.

[rgraham]

Although I have already posted a response to this announcement, I still feel compelled to add a few more comments. I have been very excited (perhaps inordinately so) about the introduction of the Foleo ever since I first caught wind of it in early-June of this year. Just by way of illustration, I recently spent a truly surreal fifteen minutes in the Palm store at the Charlotte, NC airport extolling the virtues of the Foleo to a skeptical and somewhat dumb-founded sales staff. Not that it was even my job to promote the Foleo. I was simply on my way from one gate to another when I saw the Palm store and the spirit moved me.

Embarrassing personal anecdotes aside, I, as the self-appointed poster boy for the Foleo's target market (I'm not a computer guy -- just a lawyer obsessed with gadgets and a devoted Palm user), am writing to share my thoughts on what the Foleo (or Foleo II, III, IV, or M) should and can be. I realize that the odds that someone at Palm will actually read this post are slim to none, but on the off-chance that they do, here goes:

Palm is right to focus its attention on developing and perfecting a "single platform," rather than on multiple platforms and devices that may or may not work together (or alone) on any given day. On that score, I understand Palm's concern that to bring the Foleo to market in its current form would be a recipe for disaster.

This, however, is not to say that Palm is wise to shelve the "mobile companion" notion indefinitely pending the release of a new Palm OS. It is only to say that the Foleo -- a "mobile companion" that was really more of a second mobile platform -- is not the best tool for the job.

In my mind, a "mobile companion" should be just that -- a device to support the operation and enhance the capacity of the Treo (the primary device). It should allow the Treo to function better, easier, faster, and/or in different contexts than it already does.

From this standpoint, the Foleo as originally conceived was almost a "mobile companion," but not really. It did not support/enhance the Treo's operations. Instead, it tried to duplicate some of those operations using its own computing capacity, apparently untethered to a Treo (except for the periodic sync via Bluetooth). While the Foleo's ability to function as a very basic Linux-based "standalone" laptop might have generated some excitement among developers interested in writing software for the device, it is precisely this "independent" quality that deprived the Foleo of any pretense of being a "mobile companion" (i.e., something tremendously cool and innovative) and relegated it to the status of a fairly dumb but kind of expensive lightweight notebook that happens to sync nicely with a Treo (i.e., something that people complain about on The Official Palm Blog).

So what is my point? My point is that the Foleo should and could have been much simpler, and, at the same time, would have been a much better "mobile companion." Palm's two big selling points for the Foleo as a "mobile companion" to the Treo were the larger screen and more or less full sized keyboard. However, the Treo user could only derive the benefit of these two features by sticking some computing power in the Foleo, then transferring data back and forth between the Treo and the Foleo. In other words, the Foleo didn't enhance the input or display of the Treo -- it just afforded a vehicle to "outsource" these functions.

There are, of course, far easier (and more obvious) ways of skinning the cat that the Foleo took on. Needless to say, Treo keyboards of pretty much every stripe abound. In addition, I've heard of Treo owners using Garmi's Presenter-to-Go (discontinued) to show their Treo display (in real-time) on external screens of various sizes. Unless I'm completely off-base, it strikes me that it would not take much time, energy, or brain power to pair some form of the existing keyboard technology with some form of the existing "video-out" technology in a single, integrated, lightweight and relatively inexpensive device that would fulfill the promise of the Foleo, yet avoid all of the perils.

I have more, but I'm losing steam. Palm, please make a Foleo II and soon. If you are willing to part with any of the original Foleos you might have sitting around, I'd even take one of those. I am still a big fan, but if you want to fill an existing market need for a "mobile companion," you should make sure that your product is in fact a "mobile companion." The Treo should drive the train. The Foleo should carry the water.

[ND9]

I like Palm OS and I used Palm since Palm IIIx, the product is good and easy to use. For a long time, I'd like to see a "small laptop in PalmOS", I think it will be lightweight, and powerful product. However, I haven't seen it.
And the concept of Foleo is good, but I just don't understand why I need to have a Treo (I have treo680) before I get a "keyboard"? And how can this attract people to buy, I just will not buy it.
Put off the Foleo is good, and if the Foleo II have build-in Palm OS, I'll buy one.
And put energy in develop Palm OS is good, PalmOS have it's advantage and development area. It can be a really powerful phone it believe.
Remember, there are still many many Palm fans waiting for the time change. And I'd like to see the next generation Palm can become the most popular one in the market.

[Lee T]

I have to say that I am really disappointed that the Foleo is dead. I was really looking forward to buying one to replace the ancient but very Foleo-like NEC MobilePro 880 (WinCE) that I've been using for many years.

So few people appreciate the value of instant-on for stream-of-thought note-taking, journals, communications, etc. They all say that for the price and form factor you can get a cheap laptop... But try and get that clunky Windows PC to resume from sleep reliably. Yeah, I didn't think so. So the other alternative is to get a Mac laptop - but they're too valuable and too big to carry around all the time. So even the rumored Mac sub-notebook won't really fill the role that the Foleo was going to play.

Sadly, the fact that the Foleo was canned also means that I am less likely to buy a Palm phone. Why should I? I can get most of the functionality I need from my iPaq and any bluetooth phone. Remember that the Foleo meant the phone didn't have to be as complex as a Treo? So if you guys come up with a nice new Windows Treo soon, I'll consider it, but otherwise you've lost two sales.

Let me know if you decide to offer the pre-production Foleo. I'd still be interested, even if it has some flaws and no tech support. My MobilePro 880 is getting old.

And if you do get around to doing a Foleo-type product in the future, I think that it needs:
- Touch screen (See MobilePro 880)
- Voice memo microphone

Wishing you the best of luck,

Lee T.
Boston, Mass

[shinobi.cl]

The foleo was a good idea not well implemented... I hope to see a Foleo 2 as a Bigger PDA with a Keyboard, and a Screen with a Pivot and a Stylus.

And for PDAs, you have to consider games, its a gold mine. Even without 3D Graphics, a PDA with a Zodiac-like form factor and Wifi would be a PSP and DS killer. You have many good colaborators (like Astralware, just to name one) and the linux O.S. should make possible to port things like SDL someday.

Just think about it. You just need 2 little buttons on the upper part on the PDA, and the classic 5-way switch.

[me]

Smartphones treo.
Iphone = Owned!

Foleo was a great idea but
Asus eee = Owned!

[DwarfVader]

Ed, I just spent an hour looking for your email address so I could send this to you personally and you'd get it. Alas I was able to find nothing... And I don't feel like sending emails to random addresses. *shrug*

At any rate... You made my wife cry.

[av]

Count me among the diappointed!! I am very interested in buying even a beta Foleo. If you have any in the warehouse, e-mail me with your price! What I need is an updated HP Jornada -- simple, take everywhere office productivity tool -- light weight, basic office apps, killer battery, wi fi, etc. I know so many people waiting for this -- and hate the overwrought cr*p from Intel/Microsoft. Foleo looks like a tool FOR REAL MEN -- not the whinny geeks at Engadget. Thank you!

[David]

Dear Palm,

There are undoubtedly many in the market who are rejoicing that Palm has decided to focus its efforts on developing a well-rounded operating platform and improving the Treo smartphone. I, for one, applaud Mr. Colligan's commitment to the long-term view and his courage to make a tough decision that he feels is in the best interest of the company.

That said, Palm has managed to rustle up a fairly sizeable market for the Foleo, in which many are pinning for a Foleo even after the decision to cancel the program. Several of us would gladly hand over our dollars for a ‘beta’ version without support from Palm, and regardless of any of the quirks in the software discovered under stress testing.

While I’m not certain that Palm actually produced a sizeable number of Foleo’s in anticipation of its release, I would implore Palm to consider allowing those in the market who supported the Foleo concept in its current state the opportunity to obtain one of the devices.

Respectfully,
The Foleo Community

[christian]

Said like that, it sounds like a very good decision. Given the diffuse disappointments from many recent customers regarding last products' quality, I'm wondering if Palm got that without happy customers you wouldn't sell many foleos. I definitely hope they got it. As I hope this fantastic new product will be available in Europe at the same time than in US. C'mon Palm, show that you will have it!

[MadinMichigan]

Wow. That takes come chutzpah.

Far less than it would take to just fix my godforsaken 700p. Or maybe I'll just buy an iPhone or a crackberry and abandon Palm after 10+ years.

Is anyone at Palm listening to this thread?

[Todd Katz]

Lite Computer + Cell

This was a safe decision but also relegates Palm to the history bin.

I strongly agree with NYTimes John Markoff ... there's a tremendous potential out there for a 1-2 lb., wifi/Bluetooth-based light client running Web apps (i.e. Confluence, etc.) with the immediacy characteristics of Palm OS -- instant on, changes automatically saved, etc.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/the-cloudbook-is-cancelled/

The machine should also be a phone, but the only evidence would be a satallite cellphone earpiece (think Jabra JX-10) that can stored in and charged by the larger unit.

There's really a great opportunity for a line of these machines (think Dynabook). People are going to need to type for many years to come.

Again agreeing with Markoff, since Palm is dropping out it would be up to Microsoft, Apple, Google, or maybe HP to pick up the ball.

P.S.: Some version of the unit should sport lithium batteries and an optional solar charger.

[Andrés Jabois]

I think this is right, the Foleo was something "Extra", focus on Palm (Handhelds with Phone, or Smartphones), give us Wi Fi (so we can use Skype ...) and a developer Suite for Mac OS X (or some XCode Plugin).

[Jacques Gauchey]

The death of a machine. The Palm Foleo would have been the most elegant and convivial ultra-light laptop. The cheapest too, machine to machine. Tailor-made for bloggers, reporters and globe-trotters. An Olivetti Lettera 32 for the 21st century. Killed by fear. The Foleo is dead. Long live the Foleo II of our desires.

[ThymeZone]

Today I saw my first iPhone.

All I can say is, Palm is dead.

Nothing out there can touch the iPhone. Only people who haven't seen it, don't want it.

Perfectly sized, slim, elegant, inviting glass interface. Gorgeous screen.

Price just came down. Please give me Apple stock for Xmas, and and iPhone to track it on.

Palm Foleo? Are you kidding me?

Oh brother.

[Arjan192]

Where can I buy a Foleo? Ideal device for mobile professionals.

[Steve Geary]

Wow, this is a very disappointing surprise.
I was SOOO looking forward to the Foleo as a replacement for my "well-over-the-hill" Compaq Aero8000. I wanted a small computer with a full keyboard which would have a streamlined OS for doing simple tasks such as spreadsheets, HTML, web browsing via Wi-Fi which the latter is now impossible for the Aero.

I may wait depending on when the Foleo II is released, or possibly look into other options... which all seem to be well above the $600 mark which I didn't want to exceed.

I really wanted to buy a Foleo...

[Mia]

Although a little disappointing, this is a smart move for Palm.

[mobile user]

The main things I do are read/write e-mail, browse the web, and take notes. For that, I need a touch-type keyboard and big display. Since I'm mobile, I need all-day battery life and as small and light a package that still gives touch-type and big display -- but no smaller! I already have 3x laptops but wanted the Foleo the instant I saw it. I know all sorts of people who want it. Compared to smaller boxes, it has a far more useful screen and keyboard. Compared to bigger things it is small, convenient to use mobile, has all-day battery life, and is cheap. It doesn't matter if it has all sorts of "shortcomings" as long as I can do my major tasks: e-mail, web, and taking notes. It is not what everybody needs, but nothing is perfect for all situations. There is a huge Foleo market for both business and consumer buyers of all walks. There really is not a comparable product at any price, and the nearest things (big keyboard and screen but small and light) are 3x the price or more. The Foleo was cheap enough to use hard and to replace the hardware regularly. Any leftover prototypes? I'll buy one, no support needed!

[maynardtkrebs]

I like my treo 650. More useful than an iPhone toy. I use it to carry, read, and edit mobile docs, take pics & video, and keep up with my schedule. I do not need it to be my laptop, which is a macbook. I do not need it to be a TV or MP3 player- more toy stuff for the intellectually deficient. A bigger screen would be nice. A fold-out double wide would be even better that I could use with my wireless keyboard at Panera. An intergrated printer support for my Pentax would be very useful.

[Tina Freeland]

I have just learned of the cancellation of the Foleo. I have been waiting to order this for my boss. She has been looking for something just like this and I thought I had finally found it. I know she will be upset to find out the news of its cancellation. I guess I will have to start looking again for something similar. However, I don't think it is out there. She needs something mobile with a full keyboard, similar to a laptop but alot smaller. Foleo was it, that's why we stopped looking and have been waiting the last few months. Oh well.

[Donald Jenner]

Canning the Foleo was a good idea. The new bluetooth keyboard is a better solution, especially if Palm gets off the dime and thinks about connectivity. Coupled with my T|X, and loaded in correct order (to get around the crummy software glitch that can cause a reset when using wifi), this gives me most of the functionality I want, and will give me more, once I figure out how to use all the keys in three or four different ways (shades of WordPerfect function keys, there).

Palm appears to remain solidly in the back pocket of the phone companies; I gather your new phone offering won't have wifi either. This is -- well, "imprudent" is more polite...; I need to be able to access my network and those of some of my clients, in fairly native ways; wifi gives me that capability at a very affordable price and with less fuss or muss. Connecting through a phone company's idea of data connection is just not as good -- and costs lots more. Wifi, guys. HTC has it. BenQ has it. Apple has it. Palm -- well, too bad; my next phone (contract expires soon...) will probably not be a Palm.

And I >do< hope all this palaver about a new and updated OS won't screw up what's really important to Palm users like me: A suite of software that we've used through several generations of Palm devices, that let us manage our lives and our businesses on our handy dandy PDAs. There was enough grief with the change in data formats for the current vs. earlier PDA-included software (not to mention, output incompatibility with standard formats like .ics); one could begin to think seriously of (oh shit!) moving to Windows Mobile, were that to happen.

[Laurent]

Hi,

I'm more than disappointed by this new. I was expecting Foleo, it was actually the best for me : i don't need a PC, i need something thin, light to read my email, view my powerpoint slides when i'm in business offices. I truly don't undertand your point of view. It was the best idea !!! I have a Palm E2 and i wanted so much a foleo. Hope you'll change your mind...

[Donald Sensing]

I use a Treo 650 and love it. But I can't see replacing it with another smartphone that lacks wifi. So to keep me buying Palm products, the Treo successor has to have wifi.

Make the screen larger and with capability to go landscape, and I'll stand in line to get it.