Exclusive: Palm Pre's Arrival at Verizon Shelved
SUNNYVALE, Calif. (TheStreet) — Palm's (PALM Quote) Pre phone isn't making the cut at Verizon (VZ Quote). — The Pre, Palm's premier touch-screen smartphone, which has been an exclusive offering this year at Sprint (S Quote), had been scheduled to arrive at Verizon in January.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Pre's rollout has been stop-start since spring: Sprint's CEO said in March that the device was still not ready for launch, Best Buy signed on as its exclusive retail channel in January, and by July TheStreet was arguing the phone hadn't flopped despite slow early numbers. On September 18, Palm removed its fallback option, telling investors on Jon Rubinstein's earnings call that it will build webOS devices only and abandon Windows Mobile.
Against that backdrop, TheStreet's exclusive that Verizon has shelved a January Pre arrival matters more than a single carrier decision usually would: with webOS now Palm's only platform, a second national carrier was the main path to volume beyond Sprint. The pickup by Engadget shows how widely the report traveled, and it lands just as Verizon loads its holiday slate with Android hardware, including an HTC device expected behind the Imagio.
First-order effects
- Palm enters the holiday quarter with the Pre locked to Sprint, capping the addressable market for its sole platform right after committing to webOS-only development.
- Verizon's January slot opens instead for its Android pipeline — the HTC Imagio and the device expected behind it — shifting the carrier's smartphone mix further away from third-platform entrants like Palm.
Second-order effects
- Sprint keeps its exclusivity window longer, but it is simultaneously hedging by opening its developer program to Android, weakening the argument that webOS exclusivity alone differentiates its lineup.
- With two national carriers courting Android vendors, Palm's bargaining position for future carrier terms deteriorates — distribution scarcity becomes a pricing and subsidy problem for webOS even before a deal is renegotiated.
Third-order effects
- If shelf space at top-tier carriers continues to consolidate around iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android lineups, small-platform vendors like Palm need fast multi-carrier scale or risk being structurally boxed out — a dynamic that pressures webOS toward aggressive pricing, new distribution partners, or eventual consolidation.
The trend: US smartphone distribution in 2009 is consolidating around carrier-controlled Android and incumbent lineups, squeezing standalone mobile platforms like Palm's webOS out of premium shelf space.