Free Newsletter
Report: Sprint will have Palm Pre exclusivity until the end of 2009
Free newsletter via e-mail
Tools
Sprint Nextel will have exclusive rights to sell the Palm Pre until the end of 2009, according to a report on CNBC.com.
The report, citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter, said the carrier, which is hoping that the Pre will be a huge hit, will have rights to the smarthone until the end of the year, giving the carrier a window of perhaps six to seven months to capitalize on the deal. The phone, which Palm is pinning much of the company on, is expected to launch toward the end of the second quarter.
Palm demonstrated a UMTS version of the Pre at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and it is expected that at least one of the other major U.S. wireless carriers, perhaps AT&T Mobility or T-Mobile USA, will launch the Pre once Sprint's exclusivity runs out.
The Pre, which uses synergistic technology to combine contact lists, email inboxes and messaging programs, is widely viewed as something Palm and Sprint could either strongly capitalize on or risk a great loss if the phone is not a major success. Palm posted a $506 million loss in December for is fiscal second quarter. Sprint reported Thursday that it lost 1.3 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2008.
For more:
- see this article
- see this image slideshow of the Palm Pre
Related Articles:
Palm Pre vs. The iPhone
Palm responds to Apple's veiled threat of litigation
Apple sells 4.4M iPhones in Q1, warns competition
Palm reading: Will the Pre and webOS save Palm?
Palm pins hopes on Pre, new OS
Palm hoping for a spark with Nova OS
Palm loses $506 million, sees drop in revenue
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | February 20, 2009 - 10:15am
Damn, that's one ugly phone. It's shaped just like a kotex maxi...
Posted by aero | February 23, 2009 - 11:04am
Anon above. Nice trolling. Every single reviewer has been stunned at the elegant marrying of form and function on the Pre. My guess is you have not seen the videos and don't realize that is a sliding keyboard with an elegant curve. It is actually an exceptionally good looking and exceptionally well thought-out piece of design work.
Marrying form and function with a real keyboard has eluded makers, and the Pre is the best implementation to date.
To the point of the article. I doubt the exclusive is actually worldwide. I think we will see a Euro GSM very quickly. I think you will see US voice bands but Euro only data bands in order to maintain US exclusive. That is not authoritative or inside info, but an educated guess.
Posted by Anonymous | February 27, 2009 - 2:48pm
i can't wait... i have been checking daily for news and information since it was announced... the only thing that p**ses me off is the secrecy of the release date! i'm a phone junkie so i need my fix!! (ha ha, i know im not really funny)
Posted by Anonymous | May 11, 2009 - 3:39pm
Palm better get their sh*t together and release the Pre. I hear they're dragging their feet to add mystic & tension to get people excited. All its doing is upsetting people and making them believe that Palm has their head up the butt. Apple is releasing the 3.0 update at the end of June.
Palm should have released the Pre 9 months ago, worked out the bugs that ALL phones have when released for the first time and then offer and update a year later. NOw, the phone will get released before July and everyone will be upset & disappointed because bugs aren't worked out. Iphone wasn't smooth sailing when it first came out thats for sure. If Palm doesn't pull their head out of the sand, I'll wait for Apple to finalize a deal with Verizon. I have a feeling ALOT of people with will do the same!!!! At&T's coverage sucks BIG TIME, but if Apple brings over iphone to Verizon.....Palm is SCREWED!!!!!
Comments (5) | Post a comment