Redfly. Foleo. Olo? Yes, Olo.

Active Innovation Management's taken the idea behind Celio's Redfly and Palm's Foleo smartphone companions to show off a concept computer of its own, the OLO. The OLO, if it were real, would basically be a dumb-terminal that becomes a functional laptop when paired with an iPhone.

Simply snap the iPhone into the front of the OLO, as seen in the picture, and you're ready to go. The iPhone provides the OLO with its CPU, memory and touchpad.

Is there a market for this type of device? Perhaps.

Celio's Redfly, available now, provides the same type of function described above for Windows Mobile phones. While Palm, on the other hand, dropped the similar Foleo companion for Treo smartphones just before it was to ship because of the negative reaction the concept received from the press, analysts and consumers.

Foleo’s main purpose, as is Redfly's and presumably OlO's, was to allow users to view and edit e-mail and documents from a smartphone more conveniently, automatically synchronizing files back and forth between itself and the mobile handset. You would have also been able to access the Internet for Web and e-mail, edit Microsoft Office documents and more on Foleo without a smartphone present.

In the age of netbooks, where people have learned to sacrifice a certain level of performance for a low price and portability, maybe devices like these mobile companions have a better chance of finding a niche. The price has to be right, however.

Celio, for instance, recently dropped the price of the Redfly to $200. That's less than half the amount it cost originally.

We’ll report more on the OLO computer as more details become available and if it moves out of the concept stage and into, say, reality.