Verizon Wireless and Palm Announce the Arrival of the Treo 755p Smartphone
Verizon Wireless and Palm, Inc. today announced the immediate availability of the Palm(R) Treo(TM) 755p smartphone online and through business sales channels in exclusive deep blue-green.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Treo 755p has been a Sprint EVDO device since reviewers got their hands on it in May 2007; Verizon's version arrives seven months later, sold online and through business sales channels rather than retail, with an exclusive deep blue-green finish as the differentiator. Engadget's pickup flags the pattern plainly: the phone 'goes live (at last)' on Verizon and costs more than on Sprint.
The timing sits awkwardly against Verizon's own November announcements: the carrier dropped its legal challenge to the FCC's spectrum-auction rules in October, then unveiled its Open Development Initiative and an 'Any Apps, Any Device' option for 2008 alongside a confirmed commitment to LTE. Palm, meanwhile, is already hedging across platforms and carriers, having launched the Windows Mobile 6 Treo 500v with Vodafone in September.
First-order effects
- Verizon's business customers gain a Palm OS smartphone without leaving the carrier, but pay a premium over Sprint's identical hardware — exclusivity here is expressed as price and a proprietary color, not unique capability.
- Sprint loses sole-US-carrier status for the 755p, ending the seven-month window during which the device differentiated its lineup.
Second-order effects
- With the same handset on two carriers, competition shifts to service pricing and data plans rather than device access, squeezing margins on a Palm OS product line that Palm is simultaneously supplementing with Windows Mobile devices like the 500v.
- Verizon's channel choice — online and business sales first — signals it sees the 755p as an enterprise retention play, which pressures rivals' business-sales bundles heading into the holiday quarter.
Third-order effects
- If Verizon's 'Any Apps, Any Device' pledge holds into 2008, carrier-exclusive finishes and staggered, channel-limited launches like this one lose their force as differentiators, weakening the exclusivity economics that have governed US handset distribution.
- For Palm, running Palm OS and Windows Mobile side by side across Sprint, Verizon, and Vodafone keeps distribution broad but leaves the company dependent on carrier goodwill precisely as its largest US partner publicly commits to opening its network.
The trend: US smartphone distribution is moving from carrier-exclusive lockups toward multi-carrier availability just as Verizon itself pivots to open network access, turning exclusivity into a pricing tactic rather than a moat.