Re: [NTLK] Palm kills Folio before it's birth...

OK, this is just my humble opinion, but:

I think Palm did absolutely the right thing at the worst possible time.

The Foleo was a solution looking for a problem. Consider the following:

1. It was slated to cost $500. You can get a very capable laptop for
maybe a couple hundred dollars more.

2. It was said to weigh 2.5 lbs, which, while about half the weight of
a MacBook, is still not really light enough that you'd want to carry
it everywhere, just to have a bigger screen and keyboard for your
phone. Especially if you already carry a laptop of any kind.

3. If I recall correctly, it REQUIRED a phone (Treo, etc) in order to
pickup email. In other words, the mail client on the Foleo could not
directly communicate with mail servers, it just collected what the
phone had already picked up.

When it was announced, the "huh?" was deafening. Even _I_ couldn't
think of a reason to buy one, and that's saying something. :)

So, in my opinion, killing it was absolutely the right thing to do.
It's the first sign of intelligent life from Palm in years. It's just
regrettable they had already spent so much time on it. At least they
hadn't actually gone to market, I guess.

So, the question is, does Palm have enough money to keep paying their
employees until they can ship this mysterious Linux device, and when
they do, will there be any compelling reason to use it vs. an iPhone
or Windows Mobile device? Or indeed, a Newton?

Having played with other Linux devices like the Zaurus and the Nokia
tablets, Palm's got their work cut out for them. What remains of the
Palm OS faithful are not exactly going to be blown away by a yet
another clueless UI bolted on top of a linux kernel.

Steven
http://panic.com/
http://stevenf.com/

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Received on Thu Sep 6 14:32:04 2007