Palm has canceled plans to release a laptop-like gadget that was supposed to serve as a smart-phone companion, months after the product was announced and ridiculed by analysts, an Associated Press report said.
The Associated Press report said the Foleo, which had been slated to ship this summer, looked like a small notebook PC with a 10-inch screen, full-sized keyboard and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities. It ran on a version of the Linux operating system and did not have a hard drive.
Early on, analysts dissed the Foleo, the report said.
In particular, they questioned why consumers would want to carry yet another device when they already have PCs that are getting smaller and cell phones, including Palm's own Treo, that are getting smarter.
'This is the most disappointing product I've seen in years,' Todd Kort, an industry analyst at Gartner, quoted by the report, said. 'They have some longer-term goals for this product in mind, but this is going to hit the market with a thud.'
The Associated Press report further quoted CEO Ed Colligan as saying that the company will take a charge of less than $10 million for not releasing the product.