Palm cancels Foleo 'mobile companion'

The cancellation of the Foleo will come as a blow to fans of the unreleased device

Although it said this day wouldn't come, Palm has officially announced the cancellation of the Foleo. The Linux-based pseudo laptop was facing criticism from all angles and eventually the company couldn't justify its release.

Palm CEO Ed Colligan broke the news on Palm's official blog late on Tuesday after the close of the stock market. Previous reports had suggested a delay in its release, but Colligan has instead cancelled the project.

The Foleo was a cross between a full-featured notebook and the Treo. Ever since its announcement at D: All Things Digital, its viability had been questioned. But Palm maintained that the Foleo would be a groundbreaking device.

Foleo II

Although the news will come as a blow to fans of the unreleased device, Palm did say it will be releasing a second-generation Foleo sometime in the future.

"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," Colligan wrote on the Palm blog.

Colligan said that Palm will work on the Foleo II in conjunction with its impending release of the new Palm Treo.