“The former PDA giant’s embarrassing cancellation of their Foleo mini-laptop [late last week], ignominiously announced on their CEO’s blog, is just the latest shovelful of dirt in the grave of a company which once defined the handheld computer for millions of people,” Sascha Segan writes for PC Magazine.
MacDailyNews Take: Actually, Apple defined the handheld computer – for Palm and everyone else. (If you’ve owned and used a Newton, you understand.)
Segan continues, “Palm has had two big, new ideas in the past three years: the Foleo and the LifeDrive. Both have been good concepts, slightly ahead of their time, but lacking in the sheen and finish that you see on top handhelds. When the LifeDrive came out, 4GB in your hand with a huge screen and the ability to edit documents was a new, great idea—except the thing was a slow, buggy mess. The Foleo, meanwhile, could have been a lightweight alternative to laptops, except that Palm decided to position it incomprehensibly as a ‘smartphone companion.’ Nobody wants an extra device.”
MacDailyNews Take: The Foleo was a “good concept?” Puleeze. From day one, Foleo was a joke to everyone except Palm and Sascha Segan, it seems.
Segan continues, “There’s still a sliver of hope for Palm. One company has come back from this level of ignominy to glory: Apple. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1998, the company was in miserable shape. Our editor at the time, Jake Kirchner, was asking, ‘Will we miss Apple when it’s gone?'”
Segan writes, “Jobs slashed product lines and introduced several visionary new products, starting with the iMac in 1998, heading through OS X in 2000, and culminating with the iPod in 2001. It was a long road back, but Apple walked it. Will Palm have a Steve to save them?”
Full article here.
The odds are strong that Palm does not have a Steve to save them, but they certainly have the Steve to bury them.
As we said last Tuesday when Palm killed Foleo: “It all comes full circle: Apple brought Palm into this world and Apple’s gonna take ’em out of it, too.”
And does every floundering company facing trouble have to evoke some desperate hope that some “Steve Jobs” miracle worker will swoop in to save them? Apple and Steve Jobs are the rare exception, not the rule. Most companies that have lost whatever vision they had don’t recover at all, much less recover to dominate entire industries. The fact is, some companies don’t deserve or need to be saved as they would serve no useful purpose if they were; they’re better off dead.
Palm is an anachronism. Some would argue they always have been.