• foleo

    InfoWorld: Palm Says the Foleo is on Target

    August 25, 2007 /

    A new InfoWorld article out today reads:

    “As stated on May 30, U.S. availability for the Palm Foleo mobile companion will begin this summer. We will let you know if this changes,” said Jim Christensen, Palm’s director of communications.”

    I’ve been reading InfoWorld magazine for years now and I’ve come to trust their reporting. In the “yes-it-is/no-it-isn’t” ping pong game that has been going on about the Foleo, I’m inclined to err on the side of optimism and place my bet on the Foleo shipping before October of this year. We’ll see if I’m right or not.

    Read the full InfoWorld article…

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  • foleo

    Rumor Mill: The Foleo is Still on Target

    August 25, 2007 /

    OK, there has been a lot of speculation this week about whether or not Palm is delaying the Foleo to work on software bugs and enhancements.

    Today, Ryan Kairer over at PalmInfoCenter posted a short article indicating that,

    “A Palm spokesperson has told PalmInfocenter that the company is still standing by its original timeframe originally announced back in May, saying “U.S. availability for the Palm Foleo mobile companion will begin this summer.”

    So the question that every Foleo Fanatic has on his or her mind is: Is the Foleo delayed or not? I wish I knew, but I still have no idea which rumor is closer to the truth at this point. My only hope is that Palm pre-announces the release date a few days, maybe a week, in advance to I can plan to be at the New York Palm Store when it opens so I can get my hands on one with in the first 15 minutes of it being available.

    Read PIC’s full article…

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  • foleo

    Barron’s – Over Simplification

    August 24, 2007 /

    Ben Combee has been spotted on the message boards again. This time he is commenting on the #comments blog story regarding the recent Barron’s article (details) about the Foleo’s apparent delay.

    Ben writes:

    “I can’t talk much about when we’re launching yet, but I can say that the comments in Barron’s are a major simplification of what’s been happening this summer. We’re not stupid; we’ve been working on lots of complicated sync issues on lots of phones for the last year, including testing with a wide range of Treo devices. The issues haven’t been “it doesn’t sync”, but more like “after syncing large numbers of emails over a four day time period, the operation fails 25% of the time and cannot restart without resetting the device.” We’ve been doing lots of stress testing, and sometimes that finds problems that have been hidden for a while or problems that are really hard to debug because of the need to setup a reproducible case with instrumentation.”

    OK, I’m feeling better about this. I think Ben goes out of his way to show that Palm is working long and hard to ensure that the Foleo launch goes smoothly and without any software issues.

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  • 1src

    1SRC Podcast 143

    August 24, 2007 /

    This week’s 1SRC Podcast has been posted for your listening enjoyment.

    1SRC Podcast 143 Show Notes

    • Carl W. Brooks, Editor of PalmLoyal.com is my special guest this week.
    • Palm confirms the existance of the Centrol.
    • PIC has details on pTunes for the Foleo.
    • Check out Gx-5’s DialByPhoto. For a limited time, it is 50% off!
    • 1SRC Editorial: Foleo: Big Blue Inside.
    • What’s on my Palm

    Listen to the 1SRC Podcast 143…

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  • Uncategorized

    Ed Colligan Responds to Engadget Open Letter

    August 24, 2007 /

    Earlier today on the Palm company blog, Palm CEO, Ed Colligan responded to Engadget’s open letter which was posted on the Engadget website this past Tuesday.

    “I forwarded it to our entire executive staff and many others at Palm have read it. Although I can’t say I agree with every point, many are right on. We are attacking almost every challenge you noted, so stay tuned. Let’s remember that it is very early in the evolution of the smartphone and there is enormous opportunity for us to innovate. We have only just begun to fight!

    Thank you for taking the time to write. I really do take your comments to heart and I know the team at Palm is totally committed to delivering the best mobile computing solutions in the world.”

    -Ed Colligan

    Commentary

    I think that this really gets back to what I’ve been saying about Palm in my weekly 1SRC.com podcasts: That Palm has been steadily executing a plan that will make Palm the company it was allowing them to bring innovative products to market. We know that Palm is working on a number of major projects and all we have to do is wait for them to be ready. I know that there have been delays, but do you really want more buggy hardware and software? Let’s just give Palm the space they need to get everything done correcrtly right out of the gate.

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  • foleo

    Rumor Mill: Has the Foleo Been Delayed?

    August 23, 2007 /

    Tiernan Ray writes for Barron’s website today that Palm may have pushed back the release date of the Foleo to late September to early October. The Barron’s article cites Deutsche Bank’s Jonathan Goldberg who wrote, “In a round of checks yesterday we learned that the Palm Foleo will be delayed” in a briefing released today. Mr. Goldberg’s briefing continues:

    “The product was supposed to hit Palm stores this week, but was delayed when software bugs were detected. These apparently included an inability to synchronize the Foleo with most models of the Treo, in particular the nominally high-volume Treo 680. Our contacts indicate Palm now expects the device will ship in late September/early October.”

    This is surely some sad news for my fellow Foleo Fanatics who are waiting for this device to become available, however, I would rather seem Palm work out all the kinks before the device ships. If that means that software on the Foleo or the various Treo smartphones needs to be fixed, I would rather Palm fix it and have a solid launch than ship a product that isn’t complete.

    Read Barron’s Tech Trader Daily article…

    [Thanks to everyone who emailed me about this report.]

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  • Uncategorized

    Dear Palm: It’s time for an intervention

    August 22, 2007 /

    If you are a Palm fan, you MUST read Engadget’s open letter to Palm written by By Peter Rojas, Ryan Block, and Joshua Topolsky.

    “Dear Palm,

    Man, what a crazy year, right? We know things haven’t really been going your way lately, but we want you to know that we haven’t given up on you, even though it might seem like the only smartphone anyone wants to talk about these days is the iPhone. It can be hard to remember right now, but you used to be a company we looked to for innovation. You guys got handhelds right when everyone else, including Apple, was struggling to figure it out. And it was the little things that made those early Palm Pilots great — you could tell that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to think about what made for a great mobile experience, like how many (or rather, few) steps it took to perform common tasks.

    The problem is that lately we haven’t seen anything too impressive out of you guys. Sure, over the past few years the Treo has emerged as a cornerstone of the smartphone market, but you’ve let the platform stagnate while nearly everyone (especially Microsoft and HTC, Symbian and Nokia, RIM, and Apple) has steadily improved their offerings. So we’ve thrown together a few ideas for how Palm can get back in the game and (hopefully) come out with a phone that people can care about. (And we’re not talking about the Centro / Gandolf.) Read on.”

    Keep reading…

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  • 1src,  foleo,  ibm,  wind river

    1SRC Editorial: Big Blue Inside

    August 21, 2007 /


    I’ve posted this week’s 1SRC Editorial which deals with the recent reports that IBM is looking at possibly purchasing Wind River Systems, the embedded Linux operating system company.

    “Palm recently announced a partnership with Wind River Systems to provide the underlying open standards Linux operating system for future Foleo Mobile Companion products. Over the weekend, PC World Magazine ran an article on their website about a possible acquisition of Wind River by IBM.

    Powered by Blue

    Palm is a company that has a lot of balls in the air. The Elevation Partners recapitalization deal still needs to be approved and potentially executed with a backdrop of an already jittery financial marketplace. Palm is also gearing up for a number of new product roll outs including the Foleo Mobile Companion sometime in the next few weeks; the release of the new form factor Centro smartphone, and last, but not least, the launch of a new Linux-based version of Palm OS, which I’ve dubbed “Palm OS II” until Palm officially names the new operating system in advance of its introduction during the 2008 calendar year.

    As if this wasn’t enough to keep a medium-sized technology company occupied, the possibility of having a new business partner acquired, I’m sure, has a few people at Palm interested in the latest M&A (mergers and acquisitions) newspaper headlines. The last operating system provider that Palm was working with, ACCESS/PalmSource, ran into trouble. So what is to prevent such a thing from happening again?

    Enter IBM.”

    Keep reading…

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  • foleo

    Wind River Systems to be Acquired by IBM?

    August 20, 2007 /

    Over this past weekend, PC World ran an article on their website about the possible acquisition of Wind River Systems by IBM. Wind River as you might recall was recently selected by Palm to provide an open standards based Linux OS for future Foleo products. (Details here.)

    “IBM Corp. could establish a strong presence in the market for embedded operating systems with the acquisition of financially ailing Wind River Systems Inc., a deal that is reportedly in the works.

    After the Silicon Valley Watcher site reported earlier this week that IBM was considering the deal, industry insiders — including Wind River competitors — agreed that an acquisition would make sense.

    Wind River, a 1,300-person company in Alameda, California, develops operating systems for embedded applications primarily in the aerospace, defense and automotive industries, using both a version of Linux and its proprietary VxWorks OS.”

    Read the full PC World article…

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  • rumors,  treo

    A New Week, New Treo Rumors

    August 20, 2007 /

    Following on the heels of last week’s Sprint product line up sneak peek at the Tech Summit conference, Christopher Price of PhoneNews.com has written an article based on information posted in the PhoneNews.com forums detailing Sprint’s phone line up into January of 2008.

    The following information has not been confirmed and it should be considered only a rumor at this point.

    According to PhoneNews.com member comptech2002, Sprint will launch the Palm Gryphon on October 14, 2007. Then during the three months of Q1, 2008, Sprint is expecting to launch the Treo 800w.

    Rumors usually conflict

    The first obvious question I have is whether or not “Gryphon” is the Sprint branded version of “Gandolf” which Palm seems to now be calling the Centro. Since there is no mention of Centro or Gandolf or Treo 690 in this version of the proported Sprint roadmap, one is left to wonder if this is just a mistake and Gryphon is not real or is another Palm device.

    Next we have the Treo 800w. Previous rumors indicate that the 800w is the long awaited update for the Treo 700wx, running Windows Mobile 6.0, with an internal antenna, and a higher resolution 320×320 screen like the ones that appear in Palm’s Palm OS-based Treo smartphones. Personally I was expecting to see the 800w in Q4 of 2007, however with the current import ban in effect on phones containing Qualcomm chips, it is hard to know if the date has slipped or if the device was ever really intended to ship this year at all.

    What about the Treo 800p?

    Ever since rumors of the Treo 800w started to surface across the Internet, many folks started to wonder if there would be an 800p running a version of the Palm OS. The Treo 800p would be the successor to the Treo 700p and 755p. The questions on the minds of Palm OS fans are: when will such a device ship; will it support Wi-Fi; and will it run “Palm OS II”, Palm’s as yet unnamed Linux based OS.

    Treo 755p coming to Verizon

    Last week PalmInfoCenter.com ran a rumor that Verizon will be shipping the Treo 755p this November. While still a rumor, my sources confirm what was reported in the article, that the Treo 755p will ship on Verizon in November. As long as nothing changes.

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