Will Users Want Palm’s ‘Companion?’

“Palm, the company that pioneered the market for PDAs with its
namesake product, is pushing the envelope of innovation again.
Today, Palm founder Jeff Hawkins showed off the Palm Foleo,
described as its first ‘smartphone companion’ product. Palm, of
course, also makes the Treo line of smartphones.

“In a webcast at the D5 conference in San Diego, Hawkins and
other Palm officials demonstrated the Foleo, which is slated to
ship this summer for $499. The sleek, 2.5 lbs. Foleo features a
10-inch screen, instant on, full QWERTY (standard) keyboard and a
battery life of up to five hours. Built-in applications include
e-mail, Web browsing and editors or viewers for commonly used
business applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF
files.

“Though you can edit files for the Microsoft apps, Foleo doesn’t
use Windows. It uses Linux. Palm said it also expects to make
several new application announcements after the Foleo ships. Wi-Fi
connectivity is also included along with Bluetooth…”

Complete
Story