Much to the disappointment of, well, nobody really, Palm cancelled the much-maligned and derided Foleo, a subnotebook computer designed to complement Palm’s PDAs and smart phones, before it even hit the market.

The announcement was made by Palm CEO Ed Colligan in a post to the company’s blog:

In the course of the past several months, it has become clear that the right path for Palm is to offer a single, consistent user experience around this new platform design and a single focus for our platform development efforts. To that end, and after careful deliberation, I have decided to cancel the Foleo mobile companion product in its current configuration and focus all of our energies on delivering our next generation platform and the first smartphones that will bring this platform to market.

The door was left open for another Foleo-like product in the future, however, based on their next-generation mobile software platform.

The cancellation comes at a cost: a “limited charge of less than $10 million dollars” will be assessed on Palm’s quarterly earnings.

Since it was announced in May, the Foleo has been the target of largely negative feedback. Late last month, Engadget posted an open letter to Palm, suggesting, among other things, that the Foleo be put down. It looks like Palm was listening.

Deep Thought’s take:
Killing off the Foleo is probably the best thing Palm could have done right now. What disappoints me, though, is that the Foleo could have been so much more.

I think there is a use for a small, inexpensive laptop designed specifically for basic tasks such as email, internet, and word processor. I know of people who would be interested in just that. Also, Palm would have had an opportunity to break some ground considering that in today’s notebook market, “small” and “inexpensive” don’t usually go together. Unfortunately, this wasn’t what Palm had in mind with the Foleo. Instead, Palm positioned the Foleo as a “companion” to their companion products. Typically, the handheld PDA or smart phone is considered the companion product to the laptop, so what Palm was trying to accomplish with the Foleo--something that is exactly the opposite of what most people want--is beyond me. I can only hope that Palm learns their lesson and puts some of the technology behind the Foleo toward something more usefull. Here’s hoping.