After reading on various sites that Palm has decided to pull the plug on the Foleo, I received a newsletter from Palm complete with Ed Colligan’s letter stating the same.  So what does this really mean?  Did Palm realize that the people don’t want or need this device?  In case you don’t know or have forgotten, the Foleo was an expensive light weight mobile companion device.  The intent was that it was to work with your smartphone.  So in essence it’s just a big screen mirror (with keyboard) of your smartphone’s screen connected and synced via Bluetooth.  It looks like a mini notebook with a 10″ screen except it’s not and couldn’t be used as one either.  My immediate thought back in May when it was announced was, “Why doesn’t the screen swivel so it can be used as a tablet PC?”  From the pictures I saw, the Foleo just looked like it was begging someone to make it into an UMPC.  Since the device could not run palm applications on its own, I just dismissed it from my mind.  I am glad that Palm decided to scrap this product.  Hopefully from the feedback across the Web they will go back to what they do best.  It has been so long since a new Palm device has been introduced.  I think that the Foleo could make it if they put in an OS system and make the device into a convertible tablet.  I could even go with the OS being Windows Mobile. That would enable e-book readers to have most if not all the dominate formats on board and a 10″ color screen.  The bonus would be that it could also be used for Internet browsing, email, letters, etc.  The end result is the perfect e-book reading device/laptop/tablet PC/mobile Internet device/UMPC.  Then I think they could justify the $600 price tag and I would pre-order the second the site came up.  So here’s hoping to next time.

P.S.  The Palm link above points to the letter in its entirety