fold it up
I'm either talking about Palm's new Foleo.... or the company itself. As a long time Palm fan, I feel a little weird saying that, but honestly, if this is the best that Palm can do, then there isn't much of a future for them.
Basically it's a slimmed down laptop; definitely in terms of functionality, surely in size, and also in cost--somewhat. At $500, for a device that is currently being pitched as an email client, this thing seems targeted at a niche for sure.
So who is going to buy it? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't. If I'm going to carry around (let alone pay $500 for) a device with a 25 cm screen, it needs to do a lot. At this point it does nothing more than my Palm TX does, and I carry that in my wallet!
Also, I think the design looks stale. The device looks to me like it is something that came out five to eight years ago. The style is like the inverse of something Apple would make. Maybe it is supposed to be "boardroom-bland". Who knows.
Functionally, I think it could be neat, however that might hinge entirely on whether the development community gets behind it like they did the Palm PDA's and makes it do really useful things. (Jeff Hawkins said the same thing in other words) You could call it a device in search of a killer app. For some reason I just don't see it happening. I don't think they will ever sell enough to establish it as a platform that really attracts developers.
I could see some executive or manager types being interested in a simple instant-on/off device to do email in meetings. However, the lack of syncing calendar could be a deal-breaker there. I suppose some people might buy one for an elderly parent to keep in touch with the family and the grandkids. Get grandma an internet connection with Wi-Fi and you simply have to teach her how to send an email on the Foleo rather than inundating her with a modern OS. There, I'm out ideas. Niche market, anyone?
