Palm Pre: An Engineered Shortage?

Jun 8 2009, 6:00am CDT | by Robert Evans

It's been two days since the Palm Pre launched, and so far reports of sales have been mixed. It's been reported as selling out in a variety of local outlets, but that fact may be a little misleading. Several Best Buys reported only being issued three Pres to sell, and multiple retailers have complained about the limited stock of Pres.

Could it be that Sprint is purposely sending out less Pres than they know there is demand for just to create the illusion that their product is selling like hotcakes? It's certainly possible. The launch of the Pre might be Sprint's last chance to reestablish themselves as a force in the industry, and Palm has hedged a lot on the new smartphone's success as well.

Some publications have been quick to label the Pre launch a success, citing the fact that stores in L.A. sold out before lunchtime. Sprint's stated that sold out stores would have to wait until today for a resupply. I highly suspect the "resupply" will be a little light on Pres, and we'll see them sold out again within a couple of days.

Of course, it's perfectly possible that this was an honest miscalculation on Sprint's part. They did state that their expectations for launch day were rather low, so maybe they just got blindsided. If it is a ploy, we'll know when the actual sales numbers come out, probably later this week.

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Robert Evans
The excitement about new smartphones, tablets and anything mobile drive Robert to unearth the latest rumors and developments in this fast moving space. He adopted 4G as soon as it become available and knows where the mobile market is going.
Robert can be contacted directly at robert@i4u.com.