Confirmed: Palm Pre to arrive on June 6

Contrary to initial rumors, it looks like the much anticipated Palm Pre is slated to arrive on June 6. As already reported, Sprint will be the exclusive carrier for the new smartphone from Palm. Palm is the company that single-handedly popularized the concept of a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), and then of a PDA-phone--or the smartphone as it is now known.

The Palm Pre will be available at Sprint retail stores as well as the Sprint website. In addition, it can also be purchased at Best Buy, Radio Shack and Wal-Mart. How Palm intends to keep all these brick-and-mortar outlets stocked is beyond me, since Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has said that the initial run of the Palm Pre will be limited.

Hesse was reported to have said, "We don't intend to advertise it heavily early on because we think we are going to have shortages for a while. We won't be able to keep up with the demand for the device in the early period of time."

Anyway, the phone will cost $299 with a two-year service agreement, or $199 with a $100 mail-in rebate. What are Palm Pre's chances of succeeding against entrenched players such as the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian on the enterprise end; as well as newer players like the iPhone and Android? Will it truly have what it takes to lure iPhone users over?

To read more about this story:
- check out this article from ChannelWeb

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