14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that there is more good news coming towards those who already have in mind the acquisition of a highly anticipated Palm Pre handset. The company is reported to intend on accounting for the mobile phone on a subscription basis, which would mean that those purchasing a Pre would benefit from free OS updates, and even from important feature updates.
What the company is reported to actually be planning on doing is to not “realize” the revenue from Pre sales right away. The company's revenues will look rather poor although a lot of units will be sold and the maker will benefit from the cash.
“Finally, if you were hoping for a gigantic revenue bump at the launch of the Palm Pre, think again. Since Palm intends on offering free feature updates to the webOS, they will need to account for the income the Pre generates over a 2 year cycle (similar to how Apple accounts for the iPhone) instead of at the moment of sale,” is what precentral noted a while ago, and now their statements seem to have been confirmed.
As for the OS and feature updates that those purchasing the Pre would benefit from, there is nothing more to be said about them at the moment except for the fact that they should come for free. Palm already assured everybody that it was working hard on the launch of Pre, and that it was also aware of the importance of the device for the company.
It is unknown at the moment how Palm intends to deliver the updates for its users. Some of them might become available over the air, while some of them would have to be downloaded, yet it seems that the entire updating process has been simplified. There are no details on what Palm actually has in mind, yet we'll certainly find that out as soon as they are made available.
