Palm Foleo: It's a PC, dummy

Wow, what an interesting day this was in the mobile and web world:

--Apple hinted that it will allow third party developers to add applications to the iPhone, potentially overcoming one of the device's biggest shortcomings (link).

--Google announced Gears, an open source project to enable web apps to work offline -- injecting Google into the growing effort to make PC operating systems irrelevant, and linking Google with Adobe (link).

--Livescribe previewed its pen computing device, the latest in a long series of efforts to turn Anoto's pen sensing technology into a commercially viable product (Livescribe link, Anoto background).

And oh yeah, Palm finally announced Jeff Hawkins' secret project, the Foleo.

A lot of the online commentary on the Foleo hasn't been enthusiastic. Engadget called it the "Foolio" (link). Ars Technica's article was headlined, "Palm officially out of ideas, debuts 1990s palmtop concept" (link). The discussion on the Palm Entrepreneurs Forum (an e-mail list for Palm application developers) was more balanced between admirers and detractors, but even there a lot of people were very lukewarm.

I think a lot of this is Palm's fault. They're trying to position the Foleo as a "mobile companion,"* a device that smartphone users can carry with them when they need a keyboard and bigger screen. In other words, it's for a small subset of the smartphone market, which itself is a small subset of the phone market. A niche inside a niche. The Stowaway keyboard folks should worry.

But I don't think the Foleo really is a "mobile companion." Back when I started to work at Palm (before the turn of the century) one of the old veterans of the company pulled me aside and passed along a little wisdom. "Michael," he told me, "Ya gotta think in terms of real estate. If you're in another device's real estate, you're competing with that device. Palm lives in your pocket; it competes with other things that go in your pocket. If you get bigger than the pocket, you're living in the briefcase, and you're competing with the notebook computer."

Foleo lives in the briefcase. It's displacing the notebook computer from your bag. I don't care what they call it, I don't care if Palm fully realizes it yet, but the fact is that Foleo's a notebook computer.

More to the point, Foleo is the most significant new consumer PC platform introduced in the US since the Macintosh. All you Linux heads who have been asking for a true consumer Linux PC, you finally got your wish.

Wow. That's kind of cool. It may be crazy, but it's a craziness I like. Palm has reimagined the PC for the wireless Internet era, simplifying and stripping away everything they thought was no longer necessary. So since most people carry a phone, you use the phone as your wireless modem. The device also has no hard drive. Since everything is stored in flash RAM, you never actually shut it down -- you just turn off the power, and when you turn it on again all your data and apps are still there, waiting for you. This is normal in a handheld, but it's long overdue in a PC.

"Desktops and laptops were too large, expensive, complex. You're not going to build billions of these complex machines, you build mobile computers....But it became clear the smartphone wasn't going to fill that role....You need a full size screen and keyboard." --Jeff Hawkins, quoted in Engadget


How well will the Foleo sell?

I don't know. It's not the product I would have built (my long wait for an info pad continues). The most successful mobile devices in the last decade have been specialized products that solve one problem for one type of customer -- iPod plays music for entertainment hounds, GameBoy plays games, BlackBerry does e-mail, Palm Pilot does your calendar, etc. The Foleo flies in the face of that. Although Palm talked a lot about e-mail today, the device also has a browser built in, and clearly has ambitions to be a general-purpose computer. I think we should judge Foleo on those terms, not by measuring it against other products we all imagined or wanted. Here are a couple of quick thoughts, and I'll probably post more in a few days after I've had more time to think about it...

Palm can now succeed even if Treo fails. Palm implied that the Foleo will be able to work with any smartphone, not just the Treo. This potentially gives Palm a larger market, and also sidesteps the operators, since Foleo can be sold through consumer electronics stores. Palm execs have been very public in saying that they are happier selling through retail rather than through operators, so today they must feel a little bit liberated.

Beware the Windows CE factor. I have seen many products very similar to Foleo fail over the years, and that worries me a lot. For years Microsoft and the Windows CE hardware companies produced a series of sub-notebooks that looked eerily like the Foleo. Like Foleo, you were supposed to use them to do light browsing and e-mail. They all died quickly, mostly because they looked so much like Windows that people expected them to run Windows apps. When people didn't get the full Windows experience, there was an immediate backlash.

Foleo's a little different because it doesn't pretend to be any flavor of Windows. But the hardware design looks an awful lot like a Windows PC, and that's going to create the wrong impression. Maybe Foleo looks nicer in person, but in the photos it looks like an anonymous gray box, disturbingly like a Dell subnotebook. It doesn't seem to have the lust-inducing look of the Treo 600, let alone the Palm V. I wish they'd made the case more distinctive, or at least a different color, because then people might expect different things from it.

Success probably depends on the apps. Like other PCs, Foleo doesn't do all that much out of the box. It apparently comes with Documents to Go (a well respected suite of Office apps, ported from Palm OS), an e-mail client, and a browser. That's all nice, but it's definitely not enough to make me put down my notebook computer. I think Foleo will eventually live or die based on whether it attracts a lot of third party applications that do interesting things you can't do with a notebook PC.

Palm has been evangelizing a number of developers to create apps for Foleo, but for some strange reason it excluded them from the Foleo announcement today. Instead, the announcements are going to be dribbled out one by one over the next few weeks and months. I presume the idea was that they'd create a sense of momentum, but I think instead what Palm did is make today's announcement less impactful than it could have been.

That means we haven't heard the full Foleo announcement yet. There's more to come from the third parties. We won't be able to really judge the device until we see the totality of what it'll do at launch.

My bottom line, based on what I know today: As a standalone mobile data device, the Foleo is uninspiring. As a potential challenger to the notebook PC, I want to believe, but the proof will be in the third party apps.

_______________

*By the way, the term "mobile companion" is perilously close to "PC Companion," one of Microsoft's early terms for Windows CE devices. The phrase gives me hives, but I think that's just me.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your insights on the Foleo, Michael. When the whole thing was happening yesterday, I could not wait to see your opinion on the matter - perhaps we'd all overlooked some genius part of the Foleo, but it seems that indeed, it is a stripped-off laptop that does a couple of core things very well. Oh, and it syncs with your Treo, but only e-mail because there has been no mention of a PIM suite on the Foleo.

I agree that whoever is even going to think about the Foleo will pitch it immediately against a laptop. It does a couple of core things just as well as a laptop, (E-mail, web and okay... Office in a sense but it's limited), a lot of things worse (multimedia!) and it offers a couple of advantages (lighter, longer battery life, instant-on).

But all in all, it will be very hard for potential buyers to justify this thing compared to an ordinary notebook, no matter how you turn it! Much stands or falls with its abilities out of the box. 3rd party apps are nice, but in this stage, I don't believe it will be a selling argument. Maybe for a Foleo II. If ever.

Michael Mace said...

>>it will be very hard for potential buyers to justify this thing compared to an ordinary notebook

Thanks Gaz. Yeah, it's pretty easy to talk myself into thinking there's no way the thing can succeed. But I want to reserve judgment until we see the apps and can touch the product.

I do believe the PC (Mac included) has become very bloated, and there's a need to rethink it. To me, the key question is whether enough rethinking went into the Foleo...

ccahua said...

>All you Linux heads who have been asking for a true consumer Linux PC, you finally got your wish.

I've been a Palm lifer- still carry a TX, run a Macbook and do the corporate Windows thing at work. I've recently played with Xubuntu and become a firm believer in the power of Linux: on server, embedded and 'globally' reaching the non-DRM desktop masses.

Thankfully 'Terminal' is listed on the Foleo menu and that brings back the command line which is hobby heaven. We need some to hack or pretend to hack.
Glad also for the lack of touchscreen. heck, those digitizers bum out in a couple of years.

Cellphones are becoming a commodity if not already. Nokia has seen the challenge with Maemo and the tablets. I think Palm is doing the only gamble they can in this I-don't-know-where-the-market-is-postPC -let-me-lust-for-some-gadget world they are trying to thrive in.



You're correct:
Time is in the telling with developers but we're spending the majority of time on the web anyway - services, ajax, 2.0 same old story.

I'm looking forward to this adult OLPC that doesn't cost 2 grand, doesn't run spyware on Windows, weighs less than 3 pounds, runs Linux opensource, Sony reader form factor, and is a blank slate for my Numenta htm assistant that will filter all my Google Gear enabled rss feeds. Pair Foleo with a Livescribe pen and we're in business!

Nokia is Skyping ahead.
Palm needs partners. Go Palm Go!

Best,
tony

morituri said...

Michael,

Interesting commentary as usual. I agree that the Foleo is facing a positioning problem. What makes it different from any other subnotebook out there? As you said, it doesn't look sexy enough to attract the curious, and it's not heavyweight enough to attract the professionals. Form-factor wise, the Foleo is similar to the Psion Series 7/Netbook, but the Series 7 looked way better.

If Palm had already promised that Foleo will work with the latest Nokia smartphones and the iPhone, it would certainly generate more interest, but as it is Palm will have to work harder to sell this "mobile companion".

Anonymous said...

I was too curious about Michaels comments. I agree, a drawback is that the product looks like an ordenary notebook and some people will compare it featurewise to it. This hides the real innovativeness of the product. Less is more. But at least the point will be the felt "working experience" with the product.
The comments on the product in the german Blogosphere are much better, than in the US. May be we are more addicted to Linux.

Albert said...

Michael, thanks for your insight. Here's my Spanish translation of your post. For the record, Palm Spain is saying that the Foleo will be available in Europe after the summer, but no specific time or price committment.

Anonymous said...

>> Thanks Gaz. Yeah, it's pretty easy to talk myself into thinking there's no way the thing can succeed. But I want to reserve judgment until we see the apps and can touch the product.

Yes, agreed.

Don't get me wrong: this product exactly hits the *right* spot.

The Foleo does exactly that what most people want with a laptop when travelling: e-mail, web and a little Office.

The problem is that people don't realize it and want to be on 'the safe side' and thus purchase the "4 kg 3.4 GHz DuoCore 2 GB RAM 300 GB harddisk monster laptop" to do... e-mail, web and a little Office on the road.

Or on the other side, they would buy a tiny Macbook or Win laptop for twice or three times the price of a Foleo, and still do the same 95% of the time.

I think it's a great product for those people who dare to let go of old habits. Acceptation level will be the biggest problem. Accepting that you're not doing much else than web, e-mail and a little office on the road, for which the Foleo is a great small, cheap package, especially if you already own a smartphone.

Add up 3rd party apps by the creative Linux-community you were talking about in your blogpost, such as FTP client, maybe a more efficient media player, and we might have a winner here.

Anonymous said...

The problem I have is an iPhone (with third party apps to be sure) paired with a keyboard is the functional equivalent of the Foleo/Treo combination for quite a bit cheaper (and what looks like a nicer UI and experience).

The iPhone can do anything the Foleo does (and better, as it handles multimedia) and if you can have third party applications and add a keyboard; presto chango you've got something that does everything the Foleo does.

The Foleo's two advantages, that I can see, against that combination are in the theoretical 3rd party apps, and the fact it has a larger screen.

Email is a tie.

The iPhone does web browsing better. The iPhone with keyboard is much easier to carry then Treo/Foleo.

That said I agree with Gazpacho that this does most (but not multimedia) of what I do with my laptop on the road, but I can't see the UI matching OS X, and in the off chance I do need to use programs beyond the basics I'm kinda screwed if I just have the Foleo.

Plus the Foleo is just plain ugly. I mean c'mon Palm, you can make nice looking stuff, why isn't this? Also it's too heavy. Subnotebooks weigh under 2.5 pounds, so I don't see why the Foleo is at three.

Count me in the Foleo needs work camp, but could be useful/cool.

Chris Dunphy said...

An electric car with a 100 mile range and two seats can handle 95% of the driving needs of 95% of the population.

But sometimes you need to drive across the state to grandma's house with the kids - and nothing but a minivan will do.

Palm's new Folio is an electric car - competing with my laptop for driveway space. 95% of the time it may be all I need, but if I am keeping a laptop around for that 5% "just in case" time, they are going to have a hard time convincing me to also get a Folio.

The truth is, as you pointed out, this is a NEW platform. Potentially much more than an "smartphone companion". Palm didn't present a big vision here, and a big vision is the only thing that can save this product line.

IMHO - They are sorely lacking in marketing and messaging spin here, more so than in technology.

If only they had you still to sell the real bigger potential...

- chris // www.radven.com

karen said...

Thanks for your insightful comments. I too had been eager to see what you thought.

In anticipating this announcement, I had expected to hate this device. Although I'm a long time Palm fan, I think Palm has little chance of succeeding long term in the phone market, and they've put every egg in that basket (and made a lot of bad decisions along the way).

Regardless of how Palm is positioning the Foleo though, it is a low end laptop. Personally, I've been looking for a low end Linux based laptop (primarily for the education market that I work in). This could be just the thing. (But then I loved the Sharp Vadem Clio, so what do I know? :)

We'll see what the developers do. Is there any word about how different Palm's interface is or how easily current Linux apps will prot?

David Beers said...

Chris Dunphy wrote: "Palm didn't present a big vision here, and a big vision is the only thing that can save this product line."

I agree that they need to be doing a better job of this. The vision is there and it's very big indeed, it's just not getting much airtime right now: it's that Palm wants your smartphone to become your primary personal computer. Go watch the Flash intro on the Foleo product page, especially the "Future" section where Hawkins talks about where Foleo is going.

I'm wondering if Palm's marketing people were a little reluctant to focus in on the "this is your primary PC" message for fear that it would sound like crazy talk to a lot of folks. But those people are calling the Foleo crazy anyway. Once they have the applications a little more in place Palm needs to just go for it and spell out their bold, insane plan for the revolution! The worst thing that could happen is they'll fail. Why pre-fail it by pulling your punches?

Hopefully, the marketing picture shapes up (along with the applications) as we get closer to launch.

Unknown said...

As a piece of hardware, I think the Foleo is a viable product that fills a tricky but potentially successful niche in the marketplace. An inexpensive, solid-state, lightweight, instant-on laptop with good connectivity options could be a real winner. But I fear that Palm's marketing and software choices will kill it before it reaches it's full potential.

Marketing this device as a "smartphone companion" is a disaster. A niche within a niche. When you launch a new product as a "companion" to an existing product line, you're not creating a new product line at all, you're creating an accessory. The truth is that I think that the Foleo is a viable new product line for Palm, but by marketing it as a smartphone companion, they are limiting its reach.

And apparently Palm believes its own marketing, because they seem to have loaded the Foleo with software that ties it inextricably to a smartphone. It doesn't have any PIM apps of its own, and it's email and document editing facilities seem to be based exclusively on a smarphone sync model. While these are fine features for the Foleo to have, it's a big mistake to make them the only features the product has. The product needs to stand on its own first, and extend the functionality of the smartphone second.

There's a potential for third-parties to step in here and enhance the Foleo into a viable third product line for Palm, but I doubt that will happen quickly enough to save the product. To make the Foleo work, I think Palm needs to make four things happen, and soon:

1. Add the missing functionality so that the Foleo is useful on its own, without a smartphone. You need to be able to surf the web, send and receive email, and view and edit basic documents without ever pairing the Foleo with a phone (unless you want to).

2. Make sure that cellular dial-up networking works with any DUN-enabled phone, not just smartphones.

3. Entice third-party developers by telling them (truthfully!) that software developed for the Foleo will port easily to future Linux-based Treos and PDAs.

4. Drop the "smartphone companion" marketing and really position the Foleo as a third, independent product line where the phone features are compelling, but optional.

Michael Graff said...

"Google announced Gears, an open source project to enable web apps to work offline"

The press release has a quote from Opera, and says Gears works on Linux.

Connecting those dots to the Foleo could be very interesting.

Aaron Miller said...

Michael, you're being too kind to your old buddies. There's no value here! I want Jeff and Co. to succeed, but if this is the best they can do, I'm concerned. We all want a full or at least sub-notebook that can stand on it's own and I give Apple a better chance of figuring out a good sub-notebook before Palm runs out of money...or gets bought.

Trying to remain open-minded, but would rather see Palm pour the companion resources into a better, thinner Treo.

Anonymous said...

I think I can bring a slightly different perspective on all this. I work in a company with about 1,800 staff. We are not a tech company, but practically everyone uses a desktop or a laptop. About a third use laptops. Guess what we do with them. I'll tell you: spreadsheets, documents, some powerpoint, a whole bunch of email and some intranet/internet stuff. That's about it. Pretty boring - right? Sure. And I bet there are a lot of companies who are just as boring as us.

The point is this: It looks like Foleo can do all that stuff, so there must be a market for it.

So it comes down to a marketing challenge for Palm - how do they convince our IT people that many of use don't really need the power and flexibility of a laptop (which many of use never use anyway).

I think Mike is right about the Foleo in a number of ways. In particular, Palm is doing with the Foleo what that they did with the Pilot. They have looked at what people really do with their computers out there in the real world, they have thought about what is essential and they have left out a lot of stuff that isn't considered to be essential from the typical business user's perspective. Cutting out the bloat has some huge advantages - simplicity, power saving and costs.

Will Foleo succeed? I don't know. But I admire the courage it took to ignore what everyone else is doing and to just go back to basics.

Innovation is not about piling on geez-whiz features - it's about thinking differently to come up with new ways to deal with the needs and desires of users.

Here endeth the lesson.

Anonymous said...

"Why pre-fail it by pulling your punches?"

Exactly.

I think that the Folio (or something like it) has the potential to be "the laptop for the rest of us" - but Palm isn't saying that. I could imagine an amazing PR and developer evangelism message targeting the huge percentage of the population who really don't need more than web and email and basic editing. The perfect couch PC for the spouse and kids, and great for students.

Instead they seem to be aiming at the executives and traveling biz types who have notebooks and NEED them.

If you are going to set off on a crazy quest to reinvent the PC - when you announce it, say so. Don't announce an accessory for a Treo.

They might as well have launched a brand new ergonomic Treo case.

If they really wanted to nail it - they should have partnered with Google to make sure that Gmail, Gcal, and Google Docs (especially!) worked awesome on it. And particularly - focus on the upcoming features to allow off line use.

This could have been the Web 2.0 portable dream terminal. It still may be. But Palm really needs to ramp up their messaging here - because right now the vision just isn't getting through.

- chris // www.radven.com

Michael Mace said...

Cool comments, folks! Thanks very much.


Tony wrote:

>>Glad also for the lack of touchscreen. heck, those digitizers bum out in a couple of years.

I wonder if it was also a cost thing. I'm not sure how much expense a digitizer adds on a screen that size, but I'm sure they were sweating the BOM cost...


Bernd wrote:

>>The comments on the product in the german Blogosphere are much better, than in the US. May be we are more addicted to Linux.

Very interesting! Thanks for mentioning that.


Wednesday wrote:.

>>The problem I have is an iPhone (with third party apps to be sure) paired with a keyboard is the functional equivalent of the Foleo/Treo combination for quite a bit cheaper (and what looks like a nicer UI and experience).

You can make this technical argument, but the iPhone is for entertainment users. The Foleo is (apparently) for business professionals. Totally different customer targets and feature priorities. Those two worlds intersect only here in geek-land.


>>Plus the Foleo is just plain ugly.

I got to agree with you there. Something about it reminds me of the Palm III. I've seen prettier Windows CE devices. Four years ago.


Chris wrote:

>>if I am keeping a laptop around for that 5% "just in case" time, they are going to have a hard time convincing me to also get a Folio.

And that "just in case" psychology is incredibly strong in the minds of most PC users. That's why I think the Foleo needs to do something different/better, or at least have a really distinctive look, or it'll be a very hard sell.


Karen wrote:

>> I loved the Sharp Vadem Clio, so what do I know?

Now that was a beautiful product! I wish the Foleo had copied that design.


David wrote:

>>Why pre-fail it by pulling your punches?

As Napoleon supposedly once said, "If you start to take Vienna, take Vienna."


Stuart wrote:

>>There's a potential for third-parties to step in here and enhance the Foleo into a viable third product line for Palm, but I doubt that will happen quickly enough to save the product.

Supposedly about a dozen developers have been working on apps. I'll be intensely interested to hear about them -- one app a week, or something like that.


Michael wrote:

>>"Google announced Gears, an open source project to enable web apps to work offline" The press release has a quote from Opera, and says Gears works on Linux. Connecting those dots to the Foleo could be very interesting.

Yes, that is exactlythe sort of thing Palm ought to be working on. If this is the reinvention of the PC, reinvent it for the Internet not just the mobile phone.


Aaron wrote:

>>Michael, you're being too kind to your old buddies.

For the record I'm not trying to be kind to anyone. But I do really respect the idea of reinventing the PC. I'm one of those people who have been saying for years that it needs to be reinvented. That's not something you can do overnight, and so I'm willing to wait a while for the full picture to come together.

But yeah, I'm worried.

Richard Cartwright said...

I too am in mourning for the lost info pad oppournity.

First, while I see the advantage of "bring your own storage space" with the CF and SD slots, that should have been a marketing point. Second, in the "real" world multimedia is a must. Part of that "5%" PC use is watching DVDs or ripped DVDs on the flight or the hotel room. Third, not getting much love for a five hour battery life. Fourth, (and this is really the biggest problem for me) Palm should be dropping SDK CDs from airplanes like water on a wildfire to jump start all these developers to write the applications that will give the Foleo traction in the marketplace. None of that seems to be happening. I can only surmise that the OS is really not ready for prime time and the hardware is not either. I have to say the first thing I thought when Jeff Hawkins said he had had this idea 5 years ago was that he apparently put it in the freezer, defrosted it last week and did not leave it in the oven long enough. It pains me to think that, but there is nothing cutting edge about this product.

MV Red Head said...

I can't help reading Jeff Hawkin's statements about the Foleo and thinking that he's running with a "Crossing the Chasm" strategy. It's being pushed as a smartphone companion - for email. Jeff most certainly lived through the Chasm years and sees this as his initial beachhead. The target here is most obviously a device to replace the normal PC.

And it might just be the right time for it. I can't remember the last software application that I installed on my main "computer". Everything new I've been doing in the last year or so has been on the web. Give me good connectivity to a server and I don't really want local storage any longer.

I'm watching Foleo and hoping it can create a PC replacement.

Michael Mace said...

More great comments. Thanks!

Anonymous wrote:

>>So it comes down to a marketing challenge for Palm - how do they convince our IT people that many of use don't really need the power and flexibility of a laptop (which many of use never use anyway).

Ahh, very good point -- and a serious challenge for Palm. I agree with you that getting the Foleo pushed into a company by the IT department is a great approach, but I don't know how well Palm is organized to do it. Traditionally Palm has been a consumer marketing company, selling direct through consumer electronics retailers (that's why they don't love the mobile operators). I'm not sure how well prepared Palm is to market to the IT community.


Chris wrote:

>>This could have been the Web 2.0 portable dream terminal. It still may be.

Agreed, and I hope Palm is having some really serious discussions with Google, Yahoo, and the Web 2 crowd. Adobe too, for Apollo.

The Linux developer community is great, but the most interesting end-user software innovation is happening in the Web 2 crowd. I hope Palm has a plan to engage them.


Jeff wrote:

>>I can't help reading Jeff Hawkin's statements about the Foleo and thinking that he's running with a "Crossing the Chasm" strategy.

The problem is that the whole "crossing the chasm" methodology works best for enterprise products, not consumer products. In enterprise, there's a very distinct group of early adopter companies, and innovation is very slow to move from them to the rest of the business community. Consumers are more of a smooth continuum, and if you get early adopters on board you can move into the mainstream in a fairly straightforward way.

I think what Palm's after is more of a niche strategy -- find a problem they can solve, and then branch from that to other problems. The key question is whether their core market -- mobile professionals -- is willing to give up PC compatibility when they're moving around in order to get a lighter, cheaper, and easier to use e-mail product.

Speaking as someone who tried for a long time at Apple to get PC users to switch, I can tell you it's hard even when you have a compelling feature advantage that people lust after. Without that, it's close to impossible. That's why I'm so anxious to see the third party apps for Foleo.

>>Everything new I've been doing in the last year or so has been on the web. Give me good connectivity to a server and I don't really want local storage any longer.

Very interesting, and I think a great angle on the market. I hope Palm is planning to enable that.

Anonymous said...

This is the device I was looking for years. As a researcher I spend most of my time in libraries, in Madrid, London, Paris, Florence... What I need is an affordable, spartan, minimalistic, linux-compatible computer that allows me to write down some notes with a decent keyboard, to browse some databases on the net (also pdf documents) and to check my e-mail. Nothing else.
Now my question is: what are the real capabilities of its microprocessor?

Michael Graff said...

"what are the real capabilities of its microprocessor"

According to http://palminfocenter.com/news/9439/palm-foleo-hands-on-gallery/ it's apparently an XScale processor, probably the same one as in current Treos.

Anonymous said...

It seems Palm is not the only one thinking in these lines:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/06/06/asus_shows_wee_eee_pc/

The Asus Eee will be priced at 200$ and will (as far as I can see) go head to head with the Foleo. The Eee is on the other hand marketed as a sub-notebook.

Zec Online Journal said...

I would wait and see Google mobile companion, whether ultra mobile or not, but mobile tablet... ;)

Just some thoughts...

Zec Online Journal said...

By the way, look at the latest Intel push of mobile computing with its Mobile Internet Device ( and low powered chips )...