AT&T Tech Support 360Palm Foleo: Not such a dumb concept after all?
If the sudden rush into subnotebooks by major PC vendors is any indication, it's worth considering whether Palm's Foleo wasn't such a lame idea.
Photos of a subnotebook from Hewlett-Packard, reportedly called the HP Compaq 2133, showed up on the Web recently. And another major PC vendor, Acer, is also rumored to be entering the subnotebook fray sometime soon. Neither company will confirm anything, but in the case of the HP Compaq device, an industry insider tells us the product is for real and that the company began seriously looking into the category in November 2007. When the device will come to market, however, is still a question mark.
Palm founder Jeff Hawkins (right) shows The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg the Foleo.
(Credit: CNET Networks)But there's likely to be even more news on this front in the next few months. So what's the genesis of the sudden interest in this category? It's easy to point to the Eee PC from Asus and its surprising and instant popularity. But the Eee wasn't the first to employ the broader concept of a mobile Web device that looked like a notebook PC, but was meant to function more as a secondary device. That was the idea brought to us by Palm founder Jeff Hawkins with the Foleo.
Hawkins, who invented the Palm Pilot and the Treo, insisted the Foleo was "the best idea he'd ever had." The product was roundly panned by critics and eventually dumped before it even came to market late last summer.
The idea of a small form factor computer that is tinier than a notebook with solid-state memory, running a light operating system, Web access for e-mail is being tweaked and advanced by some of the biggest names in computing.
It's happening despite the fact that it's still a vastly unproven category of computing, and previous attempts to define such a middling type of device (see: UMPC, MID) have largely failed. So what's different?
The attraction to devices like the Eee PC, and the XO from OLPC, is partly form factor, but mostly price. At $399 for the Eee and $400 for the XO (that gets one for you and one for a kid in a developing country), they're not necessarily functional as fully loaded primary PCs, but at those prices, you're not going to expect it to be. More importantly though, at that price it severely undercuts notebook PC leaders HP, Acer, Dell, and Lenovo.
Not coincidentally, the impetus for HP's experimentation in this category was its concern over the very low price tag Asus was able to stick on the Eee PC. Selling the mini-notebook at $399, even if it's a secondary PC and runs Linux, gives it a serious chance to further chip away at the already-declining average selling prices for notebook PCs. (The 2133 from HP will have an entry level model priced at $499, and will have a Via processor, we're told.)
But that kind of pricing also could represent a good opportunity for the HPs and Acers of the world. This type of subnotebook is aimed at a very narrow group of users, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, according to Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for The NPD Group.
The pricing shows "it's not focused on being people's primary computer," he said. "Like the MacBook Air, like the Eee, like the Foleo was going to be. We tend to think of them in the context of other notebooks or portable devices, but they're really not designed to be a primary portable device. It's designed to be a niche product that focuses on a very specific usage model."
But what is that usage model? There's not even an agreed upon term for this category. Subnotebook? UMPC? Super mobile Internet device? Or as Intel is apparently ready to call it, Netbook? That definition is important to the consumer. The lack of clarity as to the purpose of the Foleo was a major reason it didn't strike a chord with a lot of consumers.
"The tough part is, this type of product is trying to navigate narrow space between a notebook and a smartphone. It can't compete with a smartphone in terms of price and portability, but it can outperform a smartphone," said IDC analyst Richard Shim. "But at the opposite end of the spectrum, these OEMs don't want to compete with notebooks directly because they don't want to disrupt the growth engine and significantly (hasten) the decline in ASPs."
So was the Foleo as silly as Hawkins' harshest critics said? Maybe the execution and timing was off. Or more likely, he was on to something, but wasn't quite able to take the idea to the next logical conclusion. In fairness to him, he did recognize at the time that the Foleo's utility may not have been as obvious to the mass consumer as he'd hoped.
"The further out you are, the more people have trouble understanding. It's hard to go back in time, but when we did the Pilot, there were a lot of people that thought that was a stupid idea. I mean a lot," he told CNET News.com last year.
Maybe he'll be vindicated--at least partially--on this one too.
Erica Ogg is a CNET News staff writer who covers consumer electronics, primarily for Crave. E-mail Erica.
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It just happens that dumping on Palm is the current thing to do in the tech journalist crowd.
connectivity. Wifi is nice -- when you have it. A truly Internet
subnotebook as Internet /everywhere/.
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Platform/4751/hpcbuy.html
Same problem as today; the thin, small, solid-state connecitivity "accessory" computer cost more than a bigger, heavier, full-funcrion portable.
Foleo wasn't the answer and neither is any similar device that can't sell for less than a regular laptop.
The proper road, most likely, lies down the path of the Asus Eee PC. It just needs a bigger screen and bigger SSD at the same price points. If they can squeeze a 10" screen and 16GB of flash drive into a $400 by next year they'll be there.
Corporate market or not, price matters.
Hey, that's life...
i also have a laptop, but my wife uses it for grad school so i don't see it much. i was in the unique position of needing a portable device like a laptop, but could not afford another laptop.
the EEE is just right, it's small and inexpensive, but big enough to use for hours at a time. the price of the eee can't be beat, and i use it to take notes in lecture classes and to surf the web and check my email and stuff on the go.
i could probably use a smart phone instead, but i wouldn't be able to take notes on it very quickly in class because even a phone with a qwerty keyboard has very small keys which would slow me down.
the eee's keyboard took a little getting used to but it's great for note taking, email, and IM, where you type quickly but in fairly short bursts.
I found just buying a notebook to be MUCH MUCH better...but longed for a better form factor. Yes I am just carrying around a dictionary, in a sense..but it needs internet access, I need to be able to transfer the documents to it, for which the dictionary would have been a use...such glaring oversights in Ectaco products exist...but even the simplest of notebook loaded with some diciotnary software, does the job superbly...
in short, give me that subnotebook form factor, and I will certainly use this 'secondary notebook' for a 'specialized purpose'...all day.
Looking forward especially to the HP machine.
at 3Com, I know that Jeff is a very, very smart and innovative
inventor. However, the Foleo made no sense at all. It wasn't a new,
sub, subnote book. It was positioned as a companion device for
the Palm. How crazy is that??? The Palm was and is supposed to be
a converged device, but now you're saying a converged device
needs another device to do.... e-mail? Maybe Jeff's ahead of the
curve on this one. But I doubt it.
I think the press destroyed a great concept from Palm, the one that was probably become the next success fro them. I think their mistake was the way of managing their marketing strategy.
Now, I don't need to carry my notebook everywhere (not useful while walking, etc) because by talking on the phone I can handle the iPod Touch with the other hand.
I hope Palm is keeping a secret and will give us a surprise soon
get conventional laptops from Acer for $400. Foleo's software
was limited and $500. Palm PDAs allow the installation of
software and the TX is $300. If you can install any Linux distro
on these sub-notes, that'd be something.
I'm hoping Palm come out with a Foleo II next year.
- HP Did This In 90's With Omnibook
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by Stating
February 24, 2008 10:17 AM PST
- I have an HP Omnibook 900 which weighs about 3 lbs. It has a 10.4 inch screen, decent keyboard, 96 meg ram, 4 gig HD, PC card slot, floppy, serial/parallel. It runs Windows 98, Office 95, PDF reader, and Firefox. One cool feature is instant-on. You hit the off button and it goes into reduced power standby. As long as there is a trickle charge you can hit On again and instantly pick up where you left off.
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See all 33 Comments >>If HP could build a machine like this in the mid-90's, I don't see why there is such a fuss about doing it in 2008. Newer technology and lower component cost make it way easier to do. Instead of using a stripped down OS that isn't compatible with Windows apps, why not just use Windows Mobile and slap it in a sub-notebook form factor?