14 DAY TRIAL // Palm has decided to cancel its Foleo smartphone companion "in its current configuration". There is nothing wrong with the product, just that the producer wants to concentrate its attention on developing a single focus for its next generation platform development.
The company has invested a huge amount of money for developing the Foleo companion and bringing it out on the market. Moreover, their decision of giving up the product in its current form comes just at the point when shipments were supposed to start and the device to be released on the market. Because of this timing, it was certainly a difficult decision to take just now, when all the months of effort were supposed to start paying off.
The reason for Palm's bold decision to give up on the Palm Foleo release comes as a result of their efforts to build a next generation software platform under the shape of a flexible UI. This is supposed to become a simple and elegant development environment and will also come with a smartphone release.
The decision of stopping the Palm Foleo shipment costed the company almost USD 10 million. Behind that new release stand months of developing and production costs too, all wasted at this point. Still, Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm stated that "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".
On a long term, the company's decision to reconsider the Palm Foleo release on the market will pay off, especially if their new platform will be successful. Although an innovative solution, Foleo is based on second platform and a separate development environment, which proved to be troublesome with their long run plans of bringing the modern flexible UI next generation platform.