Palm Scraps Plans for Foleo

Palm Inc. said Tuesday it is dumping plans for the Palm Foleo, its laptop-like smartphone companion.

CEO Edward Colligan announced the move on the companys corporate blog. He said the company will focus on a next-generation smartphone platform, which could include a Foleo II.

The product was first announced in May, with much skepticism. Many wondered why customers would want a separate device when they could already do the tasks the Foleo would have provided on their smartphones.

The Foleo had a large screen and full-size keyboard for viewing and editing documents that reside on a PDA. It was originally set to start shipping over the summer.

Colligan said he still believes there is a market for the Foleo.

When we do Foleo II it will be based on our new platform, and we think it will deliver on the promise of this new category, he said. We’re not going to speculate now on timing for a next Foleo, we just know we need to get our core platform and smartphones done first.

He said the decision to scrap the Foleo will result in a charge of $10 million to Palms earnings.

Because we were nearly at the point for shipping Foleo, this was a very tough decision, Colligan said. Yet I am convinced this is the right thing to do. Foleo is based on second platform and a separate development environment, and we need to focus our efforts on one platform.

Palm Inc. www.palm.com