According to a Barron's report published today, Deutsche Bank analyst Johnathan Goldberg has released a short note claiming that the
Foleo -- Palm's
much-derided quasi-laptop -- is headed for production delays. Goldberg states in the note that "In a round of checks yesterday we learned that the Palm Foleo will be delayed," and went on to say the snag is caused by "software bugs," which prevent the system from syncing properly with "most models of the Treo." Clearly not the news that Palm wants people to hear right now, with pressure already to-the-nines on the Foleo and its place (or lack thereof) in the market. With the recent addition of
Elevation Partners to Palm's board, the company is due to take on $400 million in new debt, but on a phone call to Barron's later in the day, Goldberg said that "a leveraged re-cap is not going to help them." Succinctly mirroring
Engadget's own feelings on the matter, the analyst noted that "There's something wrong with the company," and suggested Palm alleviate some of its problems by introducing "...new software," and "...new form factors." We couldn't have put it better ourselves.
Read -- Palm Sub-Laptop "Foleo" Delayed, Says Deutsche; Does Anyone Care?
Read -- Palm: It's The Software, Stupid, Says Deutsche's Goldberg; Where's the Sense of Urgency?
posted Aug 22nd 2007 8:55PM
Die Foleo Die a slow and painful death.
I do find it amusing that, of all the mobile techies around, I appear to be the only one greatly interested in this product.
However, I feel this would fair much better if it were to be advertised as a 'hip, instant on, reliable and cheap, take anywhere and throw around ultraportable notebook' for the college crowd, and mobile writing enthusiast.
Advertise it as such then, as a feature, list it's treo connectivity. I mean, if you look at it as a stand alone product and get past the negativity surrounding it, it really does seem desirable, no? Did I mention it's one of the nicest looking $499 ultraportable slim-feature notebook around? I wouldn't mind being seen with it in public, at least they have that going for them.
Sure, it's not extremely powerful, but one only needs to give the illusion of power (take the iphone for instance, the interface sells it) which it appears to do somewhat well. And, by it's release, it should be able to complete 95% of what most people use there computer for anyway (referencing wikipedia and porn.. ok not really). Plus(!) it's built on a linux platform, so expanded functionality shouldn't be too far away (if it succeeds).
Oh well, what do you think.. am I missing something here?
First the Lifedrive then this?
It would've made sense 5 years ago when laptops were slow heavy pigs.
Palm should just kill the product and cut their losses early.
I'm so embarrased for these guys watching this product roll out. On one hand its painful to watch on the other you kind of do out of morbid curiousity.
Pick one up and try it sometime. It's oddly addictive.
heh heh Deutsche...
Ahh... I remember 1996... when this was called the HP Jornada.
... I want an updated Jornada and this looks like the closest thing.
"...it's better to burn out, than it is to rust..."
Ok, Palm is holding up to get the software right...and people bitch. Had Palm released the Folio and the software was not right people would certainly bitch. Give them some credit for at least doing their best to get it right the first time.
Palm deserves NO CREDIT WHATSOEVER for sinking god knows how much time and money into this electronic abomination!
Palm needs to be put out to pasture, plain and simple! It's like watching a geriatric patient on palative care, clinging to life.
Is Palm doing its own software development or are they subcontracting somewhere.
How can you have syncing issues between your own products? This may mean the product never sees retail shelves.
It's actually quite simple - the Foleo does NOT run Palm OS, it runs a completely different operating system based off a Linux kernel. As a result, they're trying get two operating systems to communicate properly. At the risk of offending anyone (though I shouldn't), it's like dealing with two Chinese people, one speaking Cantonese, one speaking Mandarin. They're both from the same country (Palm), but that doesn't mean they speak the same language. That can cause issues sometimes.
Well that makes sense. I am not convinced that the Foleo will be successful.
Thanks for the info
how about holding it up because nobody wants it and thinks its carp. But I'm with Angie in wanting to see Palm attempt to push its lumbering white elephant on people.
It would probably sell better if people thought it was a fish.
I am so sick and tired of all of this bashing on the Foleo. I am a ROAD WARRIOR and have been waiting for ever for just this kind of solution--something that's not my mobile handheld smartphone and not my 5 lb 13'' laptop.
I NEED something that is a convenient in-between those two devices!
I mean, doesn't anyone else have this problem? At all?
(Just kidding: The Foleo sucks. I can't believe anyone is really interested in this piece of crap.)
Pretty funny. On a more serious note you can easily get a full 12" sub 3lb laptop these days and most smartphones can easily handle most other tasks. The only advantage of this is a bigger screen than a smartphone.
Focusing on an add-on product (Foleo) for a product (Treo) that is outdated and losing market share every day is a very foolish use of time, energy and money.
It's like spending millions of dollars on an online music service exclusively for the Zune. You are hitching your wagon to a dimming star Palm.
Nobody wants this product. Fix the damn Treo... I'm giving you guys until the holiday season at which time my 700p goes away and gets replaced with something that can actually browse the web.
Lots of people want it. I run into them daily.
Palm is dead! When I was returning my Treo 750 there were two other
people doing the same thing. One bought an Iphone the other a
blackberry 8800 and I bought an HTC-8525. The only reason Palm exist
still is because HTC and Palm have an agreement to manufacture phones
for palm. Palm's processors are too slow. The designs are old and the
software is bugy. I love the form factor of the Treo, but that is not
enough to sell me!Compare a Palm phone to any HTC phone and palm
loses. Foleo in african means warrior who ran with the lions and won
the race only to have a monkey flatulate in his mouth at the finish
line.Goodnight palm. 3G-Iphone will be your pallbearer and AT&T TILT
will be your priest! Rest in peace Palm and my your bastard stepchild
Foleo finaly find its home in hell with his transvestite
sister/brother, the Palm Gandolf!Enjoy hell Palm, You earned it!
just to inform you guys the foleo is to in future support the iphone adn blackberries, its not a competitor to those devices they are suppose to be companions.
Yeah my devices are lonely and they keep asking me for a companion. I should get them this.
also to mention, treos is one of the few that is open platform compared to iphone and blackberry
Yeah, check out Symbian. With a worldwide 72.6% marketshare it must have gotten something right. It's quite open.
haha i can be like palm's management and provide a solution. they should fire more of their software people. yah, kill two birds with one stone. it'll fix their software issues and also cut back costs.
Can someone please explain to me the $#@#$ is the point of this device is.
1- it's not for the masses
2- it's not a umpc
3- its not a phone
Why would any1 want to carry another device. CONVERGENGE people CONVERGENCE!
I'd rather an olpc
I wonder if this is just a cover for killing the project due to lack of interest...?
Gotta see the look on their faces when they realized they were a decade late to the party.
Whither Handspring...
It's awesome, I still can't believe they are taking this Foleo thing seriously, and actually believing it'll work.
Mental note: short PALM...
foleo sucks...(couldn't think of anything creative)
Heh. Hate to say it but Apple has $0 debt.
and that has something to do with this post how?
Yon, you're not the only one into this machine. Our ranks our growing:
http://www.profoleo.com/
Com'on Asus... bring out the EEE and put the Foleo out of it's misery.
In the early 80's, Tandy made a portable version of their TRS-80 computer, which was an basically an incredibly simple solid-state word processor with a full sized keyboard. For decades after they went away, field researches and mobile writers sought after these rare devices, creating a robust aftermarket for the reconditioning and reselling of these machines. Why? Because all these people need is a word processor, or maybe a spreadsheet, with a usable keyboard. You didn't have to wait for it to boot up, or shut it down, or maintain a heavyweight modern operating system, or THINK about it. Using a modern laptop (especially in the mid to late 90's) was like dragging a cannon around to swat flies.
This is the market that the Foleo could serve well. Inexplicably, this isn't the market Palm seems to be targeting, which is unfortunate, as UMPCs are finally within a year or two of finally getting cheap, simple, and reliable enough that people won't need this anymore.
In short, I think the Foleo concept is genius, but if they don't get it right this time it will be too late.
With the pricetag of a modern laptop and an inexplicable "mobile companion" sales push, things are not looking good.
But the problem is that the Foleo concept is not genius, even if the hardware is nice. They coulda rolled out a Palm OS standalone clamshell for $299 or so. Instead they trump up the Treo companion angle, and also trump up the price despite the relatively cheap hardware.
Could you imagine if Apple came out with a flash-based subnotebook like this, running a stripped down OS X similar to the iPhone? Now that would be a sweet mobile machine...It might actually be nice enough to charge the $499 or $599 that Palm wants for the Foleo.
I agree, they may have rolled this out just a hair too late. I honestly think someone up there must like riding the razor's edge or something.
See, this bugs me. What would be perfect is something with the form factor of an OQO Model 2, small enough to carry with me, but can still edit word documents, view web pages, have some software I install on my own, an actual keyboard, and a non-microscopic screen. I have an HTC 8125 now, which works. If it had 3G, a better processor, and some type of Linux distrobution on it, it'd be perfect.
I for one, dig the concept of the Foleo. I mean, the vision is that your mobile device, in this case a Treo, would have all the connectivity, storeage, and processing power that you need. But sometimes you just need a bigger screen and a keyboard! So why not suppliment your Treo with something like the Foleo? No, I'm not talking about just syncing, I want my Treo and a Foleo device to act as one. When I create a new document, it should appear on the Treo and Foleo. When I'm viewing a video and walk away from the Foleo, the Treo should continue playing. In one word...Seamless.
But I do agree that the Treos and Foleo need major rework! I mean there's one thing about taste, which Apple/Steve Jobs and Co. are good at. But com'on Palm, is it so hard to have a decent redesigned Treo that has glass and aluminum? And the current foleo design just screams cheap plastic!!! Don't bother waiting for your new OS to have new hardware...Just Release the hardware and make the OS upgradeable! The time it took Apple to do the iPhone, you guys sat on the same Treo design...you've only removed the NOB! Where's the R&D?!?!?! Where's the managment in this!?!? As agonizing it is for us, what's it like on the inside? Like pulling teeth?
> Com'on Asus... bring out the EEE and put the Foleo out of it's misery.
According to Asus (see Endgadget's note http://tinyurl.com/2vuelk ) the EEE is coming is September.
Am I the only one who actually hopes this succeeds? I always liked the palm interface over the windows mobile/CE interface. Its simple, efficient, and meets pretty much all of your basic business computing needs without overdoing it. I mean, I don't need a flippin' Vista Premium compatible machine with dual cores and dedicated GPUs to read my email, check my stocks, and write memos to the office.
The only concerns I have are:
1) will the foleo retain the simplicity of the palm OS?
2) will the pricetag put them in competition with smaller laptops, which kinda defeats the purpose behind the foleo?
3) why in the HELL aren't they positioning the foleo as the palm pilot of laptops instead of selling it as a 'companion to smart phones?'
I'm with you JCD. I want the Foleo to work, and I want it to retain the simplicity of the Palm OS. My Palm on a larger screen with PIMs, email, internet, Wifi, and Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, perfect!
That covers about 95 percent of what I need. I'm willing to wait, come on Palm, I've been using your products for over a decade, and they are still better overall devices than Windows Mobile, Smartphones, and iPhone.
Malcolm Marler
They shouldn't have wasted time creating this f-ing Joke of a device in the first place, it's 2007 almost 2008!!
Figure it out Palm, you're dying!!!!
I really wish all the little 14year olds bashing this thing would just go away, ya, we get it, it doesn't play doom3 or whatever, great, just because YOU don't like it, doesn't mean other people won't. what you think you're smart because you've read a best buy flyer and you know about 12" portables? you get a gold star! stay in school.
for me, this would be great for installing an apache server and running it as a php/mysql dev environment, instant on is something no mac or windows notebook can compete with.
the problem is the $500 price tag. don't think so, not ever for that price. make it $299, and sure, perhaps. until then, I'll deal with NOT instant on notebooks with MORE power, that I can get on ebay for like $150. ie compaq n410c 12" ultraportable not much larger but with 1.2ghz p3 and like 1gb ram.
I'll make it short, sweet, and to the point. I work for Palm as one of the field reps going around to the stores, and I love the company. I love the products. I do believe they're a bit too stagnant, but I still love the company and their products. I also recognize that they've turned out some turkeys. The 650 and the original 700w had hardware issues, the 680 isn't 3G and has a VGA camera (which you CAN'T blame Palm for, Cingular specifically requested the stripped-down specs for it, don't ask me why), and the 750 is...well, it's Windows Mobile, what do you expect from it? And now, we have the Foleo. Looks great on paper, but it's a total niche product. From day one I was excited about it from a tech geek perspective, but I still rolled my eyes because it sounded like Palm was pidgeon-holing themselves. Then I got my demo model to feel out, get comfortable with, and get ready to demo to my stores after it launches.
I'm posting from my Foleo right now. This thing is addictive. It's convenient, bloody more convenient than my Thinkpad was before it caught fire. I used to check my email out of necessity but now I actually kind of enjoy it. Really, this thing isn't full of innovative technology or even anything we haven't seen in one form or another before. There's no real rhyme or reason for it, but I genuinely enjoy this product. And so far, so has everyone that came to the demo events or seen me use mine in passing. The Palm Store in my territory gets daily inquiries about it from people chomping at the bit. This thing is a little grey diamond in the rough. Is it going to fly off the shelves and go into production droughts like the Nintendo Wii? Probably not. But it's not going to flop, at least not without a fight. Now, I'm going to go check my work email and catch up on Homestar Runner.
Thanks for this post. Personally, I like this idea, after spending time trying to use a miniature bt keyboard with my PDA. There is definitely a niche for the Foleo, snide comments on this post notwithstanding. It will be MUCH easier to use on a plane than most laptops, and the instant-on feature will make it handy for casual use.
PDAs/smartphones are small and convenient, but at times it's handy to have a full-sized interface. Yes, I can see this filling the same kind of niche the Journada/TRS-80 portables used to sell to. If Palm can follow through with iPhone/Blackberry compatibility, it could be huge.
I just hope the damn thing works the way it's supposed to.
Here's the thing, D... for the most part I think people want to agree with you. However, it sort of seems foolish when your flagship products are in deep doo-doo (those you mentioned and those you didn't -- like the 700p...).
I personally think the foleo *could* be a great way to get out-from-under the carriers and enabling Palm to innovate independent of the current carrier-constipation that messes up any changes or innovation that Palm tries to introduce.
I just wish it were lighter, a bit smaller, and had beefy enough specs to shut people up... so far, I can't see that they have this in place.
Even with instant-on, if the capabilities aren't there and the battery life falls victim to hype it won't take but ONE misstep, ONE flawed patch, ONE case of data-loss for this initiative to fail.
IMO, 2+ pounds in this day and age is just too heavy (unless the specs are KILLER otherwise).
- John Carter
@JohnCarter
Right back at you, in some ways I agree, but not entirely. Regarding your wishes, it wouldn't be practical at that point, not for what it's supposed to be. Lighter, not unless you want to compromise the battery, at which point you lose one of the key promises, extended battery life. A bit smaller, again, not possible. The inside is packed pretty tightly, so you can't shave it down thickness-wise. The margin of room to either side of the keyboard is mere milimeters, the bare minimum width they could support while offering the full-size keyboard, and the key size and spacing was tested at all different measurements (smaller keys, smaller spacing, etc), and they went with the size they did for maximum comfort-of-use to minimum-space ratio. Believe me, the designer was very proud to talk about the amount of care he took to design its form-factor. And shaving the depth decreases the space for the internal guts AND cuts down the monitor size, which, again, removes from the overall promise of the device. Trust me, a lot of thought went into designing this thing. And as for the specs, I personally wish they'd gone with a slightly stronger processor, but if there's something the computer industry is teaching us lately, it's that MHz mean very little, it's the practical and efficient application of the power that counts. Sort of like how 1,000 horsepower is nice, but without the torque to back it up, it means absolutely nothing. They're doing a good job of harnessing what it has, and much more would produce undue heat, which is very bad for a system without a fan.
As far as fatal mistakes go, battery life is, so far, exactly as promised (can't say it'll stay that way with media software loaded on it, as I don't have it yet to test). Flawed patches are, unfortunately, a hazard of ANY software venture and you're right, they could spell demise for the Foleo, so they need to be EXTRA careful about that. But data loss...the only time I have encountered that, so far, was installing the compact flash card to expand the storage. Doing so, the Foleo transfers system and user info the to CF card, wipes the internal storage back to factory, and shut it down. If you remove the CF card, all the data will still be on it (your email, your personal files, etc.), but they will no longer be in the internal storage. So long as Palm BEATS that into the customer's head forcibly, it shouldn't (you can't see me, but I'm knocking on wood) be a terrible issue. Otherwise, I have yet to lose a single file.
And really, 2.5 lbs. is still far better than most laptops, as your standard hard drive weighs a good portion of that.
But I certainly do feel where you are coming from, these are issues that the average consumer probably won't consider and it may in fact spell doom for the project, but, forums aside, prospects really do look good so far. Doesn't mean I'm not crossing my fingers, right?
Here's a crazy idea, and I hope someone important hears it!
Why do companys still insist on such secrecy with their products? Why not release a design idea to your potential customers (in large numbers, not some closed door testing) and get valuable feedback, FOR FREE!
I realize the desire to keep a product secret so that a competitor won't be able to copy it, but times are changing.
If I were Palm, I would release the details on what they are working on right now, before spending millions upon millions on research only to find out that the product SUCKS and WILL NOT sell(foleo)!
Show us what you think the next smartphone should be and then LISTEN to our opinions before finalizing a device.
Be the company to start a new trend, and allow your customers to essentially design their own device!
In engadgets open letter to Palm, they repeatedly spoke of a need for innovation. Change the way products are designed from the start, treat your customers almost as partners and you will end up with an amazing device with near guaranteed success.
Seems too simple, what am I missing here?
Good god almighty, you're singing a song I've sung many, many times. I am about 95% with you on this one. There are ways of gathering consumer input that aren't out in the open for all competitors to see. I believe Datel did just such a thing when the Nintendo DS came out, holding a contest for users to send input on what the new peripheral they would design should be. They got a lot of silly, nonsensical ones, and quite a few good ones. I do believe the winner even got to have the first one they'd roll out for free, which is a nice touch.
Now, I KNOW that Palm does your standard market research, and gets customer input (hell, they have me gather it on a regular basis) so they can attempt to keep in touch with customer demand. The largest problem I've encountered is that people want, in general, a large screen, they want a large, comfortable keyboard, they want long battery life, and they want it to be credit-card thin, and they want it all. Problem is, that's not practical. So, as far as feature and form-factor go, they're doing everything they can to satisfy the crowd. As far as physical appeal goes, I think they definitely should poll the consumer base, at the least offer them a selection of "swatches" to vote on, maybe hold open-forum on what changes the average consumer would like to see to their choice, maybe even have the more tecnically-savy customers send them rendered 3d or even physical models for suggestions. I firmly believe there's no reason that form and function have to be mutually exclusive. Then again, I've heard a lot of criticism on the Centro's design, and I personally rather like it. So, ultimately, you have those that really like the form, and those that do not, and you can't please them all. But, again on the flip side, I do think that the current form factor, even with the 680-755 redesign, is a tad bit stagnant and in dire need of a drastic update.
But come on...to say that the Foleo WILL NOT sell is just silly. There's DAILY inquiries at the stores of when they're getting them and if they can buy one yet. To say that it won't sell just because it's not YOUR cup of tea is, well...rather silly. There's a market, there's interest, it's just a question of whether there's ENOUGH interest, and only time will tell that.
OTHERWISE, I do agree with you, if Palm took more customer input than they do, they could create a truly revolutionary device. I'll pass the word up the chain, see if anyone listens. Couldn't hurt, right?