Remember Palm? They were a little company that produced this kickass product called the Treo, which combined a phone and PDA in one awesome, convergent device. They just released the Palm Foleo, to the oohs and ahhs of…well…no one. It’s a separate add-on, about the size of a laptop, that allows you to edit documents or web surf on your phone. That’s right — it’s a glorified keyboard and video screen for your phone.

Oh Palm, what happened to you? At one point, you were the de facto source for PDAs. A brief flirtation with Kyocera brought you to the phone, and culminated in the ultimate convergent device: the Treo.

Then Blackberry started eating your lunch. You had the Treo camp, and you had the Blackberry camp, with the BB camp recruiting new users daily. (Quiet you Pocket PC owners, you were never in the game.) You released the Treo 650, which was a nice upgrade. Then the Treo 700 — an incremental move. Then, the 750…then the 755p…small improvements that went quietly in the background, while Blackberry started cranking some some seriously usable devices. It was time to really strike the market, and show people that Palm was an innovative company. The next product was going to be a must-have device.

So what the hell is the Foleo? Here’s what I don’t understand:

• Going away from convergence. Palm really put convergent devices on the map with the Treo. An all-in-one device that was small enough to take everywhere — this was great. Everyone rushed to follow suit, because the consumers really wanted this. People want a device they can use on the go. They don’t want separate devices. So why does Palm suddenly think people want a separate device? No one else thinks this, and as the voice of one consumer, I can tell you: I do not want this.
• Sizing is not portable. This thing is a beast. If it’s a mobile device, it has to be small. This thing is not — it’s the size of a laptop, which brings us to the next item…
• It competes with a laptop. Most business users have a laptop. I have three of them. Am I really going to want to add this thing beside my other laptops? What’s the point? If I’m going to be viewing documents or surfing the web, then of course I’m going to prefer my laptop. However, rather than focus on making the Palm work better with the laptop, Palm is creating a laptop replacement.
• It’s priced competitively with a laptop. So, this thing is not a laptop. It lacks a hard drive, it’s underpowered, and doesn’t give much in terms of choice of operating systems or software. Yet, it costs $600. Sure, you get a $100 rebate, but it still will cost me $600 out of pocket. I can get laptops for that amount. Full-blown, fully functional with hard drive laptops.

I want to know what the management at Palm was thinking. Who thought this would be the end all, be all? If this were released near the beginning of April, I would think this must be some kind of April Fool’s Day joke. Oh, what has become of the almighty Palm? Are they just trying to make themselves an easier acquisition target?