What an excellent decision! Ed Colligan made a tough decision. 10M is a lot of money to write off. But it was without a doubt the right decision. I'm sure we will now see the Linux version Treo much sooner.
Roger --- Roger Prokic Baltimore, Maryland USA -=[ This email was sent from a Palm Treo 680 palm computer using SnapperMail Enterprise Edition v2.3.7.01 ]=- ...... Original Message ....... On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 21:21:54 +0000 Bill Gamble <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ><http://blog.palm.com/palm/2007/09/a-message-to-pa.html> > >"A Message to Palm Customers, Partners and Developers > >As many of you are aware, we are in the process of building our next >generation software platform. We are very excited about how this is >coming together. It has a modern flexible UI, instant performance, and >an incredibly simple and elegant development environment. We are >working hard on this platform and on the first smartphone that will >take advantage of it. > >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 out >next generation platform and the first smartphones that will bring >this platform to market. We will, of course, continue to develop >products in partnership with Microsoft on the Windows Mobile platform, >but from our internal platform development perspective, we will focus >on only one. > >Because we were nearly at the point for shipping Foleo, this was a >very tough decision. Yet I am convinced this is the right thing to do. >Foleo is based on second platform and a separate development >environment, and we need to focus our efforts on one platform. Our own >evaluation and early market feedback were telling us that we still >have a number of improvements to make Foleo a world-class product, and >we can not afford to make those improvements on a platform that is not >central to our core focus. That would not be right for our customers >or for our developer community. > >Jeff Hawkins and I still believe that the market category defined by >Foleo has enormous potential. When we do Foleo II it will be based on >our new platform, and we think it will deliver on the promise of this >new category. We're not going to speculate now on timing for a next >Foleo, we just know we need to get our core platform and smartphones >done first. > >I would like to thank our customers for their interest in Foleo. I >know there will be disappointed folks who were looking forward to >carrying a Foleo for all their mobile computing needs. I am certainly >one of them. I would also like to thank the developers who have >supported our Foleo efforts. They have been loyal to Palm and have >worked hard to deliver some compelling solutions on the Foleo >platform. I know that they will understand that the right thing to do >for the long run is to focus on one platform that will live for years, >rather than invest energy in a one-off solution. We will make every >effort to make sure we bring our developers forward to our next >generation platform. > >This decision will require us to take a limited charge of less than >$10 million dollars to our earnings. This is a lot of money, but it is >a small price relative to the costs that would be required to support >two platforms going forward. This decision is in the best interest of >our customers, our team, our products and our shareholders. I hope >this renewed focus at Palm will allow us to deliver more compelling >solutions to our core smartphone market, and it will allow us to >position ourselves for the long run around one Palm experience. > >-Ed Colligan, CEO" > >-Bill > > >
