Sprint to have US exclusivity on Palm Pre until 2010

If you were hoping for the  Palm Pre to be released this year via other US carrier than Sprint, it looks like your hopes are in vain.

Someone “familiar with the matter” told CNBC that the brand new Palm smartphone will be a US exclusive on Sprint at least until the end of 2009.

Of course, for the moment, an exact release date for the Pre is not known, but if Sprint manages to launch it in the next few months, then it will have quite a long exclusivity period.

First unveiled in January 2009, Palm Pre is not just one of Palm’s nicest devices ever, but also one of the most eagerly expected smartphones of the year, so it’s no wonder Sprint wants to sell it as long as it can with exclusive rights.

palm-pre1

As for its availability in non-US markets, the Pre will probably be released sometime in mid-2009 in Canada and various European countries (details about the carriers to sell it are currently missing).

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Posted on 19 Feb 09 - Filed in Sprint, palm - Comments - Written by ilinca

  • Ben
    It's pretty clever - Sprint need something to turn their fortunes around, and Palm need to make a slow launch. They won't have seen the demand they are going to get for this thing for years, so it's only sensible they want to launch with only one carrier, and the smallest of the major ones at that. It's better for Palm to have a hitch-free launch - they don't want to have a similar situation to Apple with MobileMe. I can see Rubinstein's fingerprints all over this: http://thephonelounge.com/?p=64
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