Less than six months after announcing the Foleo, “the first computer designed to be a companion to a smartphone,” Palm has discontinued the product, CEO Ed Colligan said in a Sept. 4 blog entry.

 

The Foleo was essentially a mini laptop designed to sync with a smartphone. It was one company’s attempt to fulfill the demands of users for portable computing and telephony. Apparently, there just wasn’t a market for the product—a criticism that some analysts expressed when Foleo was announced in May.

 

I say “announced” rather than “launched” because, as Colligan acknowledged in his blog entry, no Foleos were ever shipped.

 

“Because we were nearly at the point for shipping Foleo, this was a very tough decision,” Colligan wrote. “Yet I am convinced this is the right thing to do.”

 

He continued: “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.”

 

Hmm… ‘single, consistent user experience’… Can anyone say “iPhone”?

 

Colligan said Palm is now working on building the next generation of its software platform, which will boast “a modern flexible UI, instant performance and an incredibly simple and elegant development environment.”

 

Again, can you say “iPhone”?

 

When Foleo was announced in May, TMCnet president and group publisher Rich Tehrani said that he just didn’t see a market for the product.

 

“I can think of virtually no-one who needs it,” Tehrani wrote. “I keep trying to come up with a scenario where the Foleo makes sense and I just can’t. Palm would have been much better off making a truly functional ultra-mobile PC.”

 

The market has spoken, and it turns out Tehrani and the other analysts were right. What do you think—is Palm now focusing its attention correctly or making another mistake?