This one sure came as a surprise: Palm has just announced that its much made-fun-of Foleo device has officially been canned. In a post to the company’s blog, CEO Ed Colligan announced that Palm has decided to cancel the Foleo “in its current configuration.” “Because we were nearly at the point of shipping Foleo, this was a very tough decision,” Colligan wrote in the post. “Foleo is based on a second platform and a separate development environment, and we need to focus our efforts on one platform. Our own evaluation and early market feedback were telling us that we still have a number of improvements to make Foleo a world-class product, and we can not afford to make those improvements on a platform that is not central to our core focus.”

In recent weeks, reports emerged that the device–which was originally slated for a release during the late summer–had been delayed. Despite this fact, we’re still quite surprised to hear that Palm is completely canceling the Foleo, considering how close it was to launch. Nonetheless, the Foleo was almost certain to be a flop of tremendous proportions, given its high price, limited functionality and small potential user base. Palm, however, won’t rule out the possibility of a future device based on the Foleo platform, with Colligan even giving it a name: the Foleo II. “When we do Foleo II it will be based on our new platform, and we think it will deliver on the promise of this new category,” he wrote. “We’re not going to speculate now on timing for a next Foleo, we just know we need to get our core platform and smartphones done first.” If I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath for the Foleo II–not until Palm gets back on track, anyway. Still, you’ve got to give the company credit where credit is due: it takes guts to admit to a such a huge mistake.

For more on the cancellation of the Foleo:
– see this post from the Official Palm Blog