By Stevie Smith Sep 6, 2007, 16:24 GMT
Only a mere three months after its initial announcement, the diminutive Foleo mobile companion has this week been axed by creators Palm Inc., with the company stating that it was unable to successfully meet the challenge of forging the Foleo alongside its mainstay smartphone and PDA market interests.
"Foleo is based on [a] second platform and a separate development environment, and we need to focus our efforts on one platform," explained Palm CEO Ed Colligan via the California-based company’s official blog. "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 cannot afford to make those improvements on a platform that is not central to our core focus."
As of late, Palm’s focus has been centred on crafting a new operating system (OS) for its popular Treo smartphone handset, which is expected to function with the Linux platform in order to offer users improved flexibility and increased multitasking capacity. In slamming the lid closed on the $10 million USD creation of Foleo, Palm has intimated that the completion of its Treo OS now takes precedence prior to any possible return to the development of Foleo.
The Foleo mobile companion, brainchild of Palm founder Jeff Hawkins, was meant to hit retail at the end of summer 2007 as a small-form ultra compact laptop-esque device designed to connect to Palm smartphone handsets for the delivery of convenient e-mail access and Internet browsing to its users.
The disappearance of Palm’s ambitious Foleo device was perhaps to be expected, especially as it was met with analyst frowns following its initial unveiling, with various industry watchers suggesting that, as a brand new hardware category, it lacked the necessary market appeal and long-standing traction to survive.
"It's much smarter for Palm to concentrate on its main business than come out with a whole new category and build a market around it," commented Jack Gold, an analyst with J. Gold Associates, in a San Francisco Chronicle report. Gold also outlined that Palm Inc. currently lacks the size and influence to embed such a product, and that the market was unlikely to embrace it immediately.
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