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Online retail giant Amazon.com's listing for Palm, Inc.'s newest device, the LifeDrive mobile manager, included the words "Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes" yesterday, sending the Palm community into a frenzy of reproach and recrimination.

Fans of the first Palm handheld with a hard drive faced off against those who think the device's implementation of said feature results in a less than satisfactory product offering—slow boot times, stability problems—on message boards across the Internet.

Well, it looks like the "I told you so" crowd will have to eat a bit of crow—at least for now.

First, Palm vehementally denies plans to terminate or the actual discontinuation of LifeDrive and, second, Amazon.com has removed the statement that launched the controversy from the mobile manager's product listing.

So, as we expected, the whole incident was the result of a mistake by the Internet retailer giant.

It's a bit early in the game for the handheld pioneer to pull the plug on a new product, whether you think the LifeDrive concept is full of potential—as we do—or not. Don't you think?

In fact, yesterday's controversy went against the grain of Internet rumor mill chatter from earlier this summer. In June, rumors indicated Palm was already readying a follow-up to the first LifeDrive; for possible release this fall. Palm rarely releases a sequel to a product in less than a year.

In addition, Spanish language site CanalPDA.com asserted - at the time - to seeing a press release from the Spanish division of Hitachi that said Palm would use Hitachi's new 6 GB Microdrive (see 6 GB Squeezed Down to an Inch) in its next LifeDrive model.

Hitachi plans to release an 8-10 GB hard drive, nicknamed "Mikey", that is 20 percent smaller than their current one-inch models later this year. Perhaps Palm is looking to get some mileage out of an intermediary 6 GB LifeDrive before going with these higher capacities next spring?

LifeDrive
LifeDrive is the PDA pioneer's bid to open itself up to a whole new class of user and get back on the cutting edge of mobile device development with superior multimedia, syncing, and business orientated features.

Central to LifeDrive is its 4-gigabyte (GB) Hitachi Microdrive, which makes all these applications for the device possible

For more on LifeDrive, see PalmOne Debuts 4-Gigabyte Gamble & Review: PalmOne LifeDrive Mobile Manager.