On 30th May, 2007 Jeff Hawkins, Founder CEO of Palm showed off his latest gadget; a low-cost ($ 599) Linux PC that would be a companion to the highly successful Treo Smartphone from Palm. While the initial reaction has been far from euphoric considering the fact that Jeff Hawkins is no ordinary person – inventor of “Grafiti” that brought “Pen Computing” to the real world, Palm Pilot (launched in 1994) and more recently the Treo SmartPhone.
Most analysts look at Foleo as going away from converged device (PC + Phone) and the fact that $ 599 Laptop has no great attractive features.
Somehow I feel that the companion is the way to go; people would want a “handy” phone to talk and a large-screen, full keyboard device to browse, edit, e-mail and even chat; the devices being “combo” they would “synch” always, use common communication channel and combine the “best of both the worlds”. It is like land line phones in the drawing room and cordless phone for the rest of the home.
But for that Jeff Hawkins would not have made the statement “it is one of the most exciting products I have launched in recent times”.
Let us see how Foleo evolves.
