• foleo

    Companion or Stand Alone Product

    August 29, 2007 /

    Ever since Palm announced the Foleo back in May they have been fighting an uphill battle to try and convince people that the Foleo is not a sub-notebook or Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC).

    So while I’m waiting for my chance to buy my Foleo, I have to wonder if Palm should just go with the flow as it where and market the Foleo for what is is being perceived as: a light weight Linux notebook.

    Palm wouldn’t have to take anything away from the Foleo being a great companion product for the company’s smartphones. What they would be gaining, after some shoring up in the software department, is a new market of customers who would use the Foleo as a mobile computer.

    What do you think? Click the Comments link below and let us know.

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  • treo

    Is this the Centro?

    August 25, 2007 /

    Gizmodo is running what appears to be a press photo of the upcoming Centro smartphone for Sprint this morning.


    Wow, what a difference from the blurry photos we’ve seen previously. This thing looks really good! I was under the impression that the black device was going to be the Windows Mobile version that has been rumored to be floating around, but this photo clearly shows the standard Palm hardware buttons around the navigator ring. (The other tip off that this is not a Windows Mobile device is the lack of the Windows key. Stay tuned, there could be a Windows Mobile version still in the works.)

    Read the full Gizmodo article…

    Update:

    The Boy Genius Report seems to have a listing of the Centro SKU and full retail pricing posted. It looks like the Centro will be selling for $399.99 without a new service contract.

    Keep reading    …

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  • 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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