14 DAY TRIAL // According to the latest news on the web, Sprint and Palm do not expect for customers to rush that much into acquiring the Palm Pre smartphone that will go on sale starting tomorrow, exclusively with the wireless carrier in United States. Although previous reports pointed towards the possibility that there would be shortages at launch, it seems that the companies believe that things will be rather the other way around.
“We’re actually trying to manage the exact opposite,” Mark Elliott, a spokesman for Sprint, is reported to have stated. “What we’re trying to do is not have people backed up waiting so customers feel rushed. We want each customer to get the experience,” quotes New York Times. Success “is not about having a line out the door. It’s about being able to treat each customer and make sure they’re happy with their decision,” Elliott added.
As many of you might already know, the Palm Pre managed to generate quite a buzz on the web in the past few months, especially given the fact that Sprint and Palm announced the release date of the device only a few weeks ago. At the same time, Sprint's CEO stated recently that the company tried not to put together a large advertising campaign for the Pre due to the fact that it feared its stock wouldn't be able to cover the demand that Pre was expected to see.
In additional news, we learn that Palm expects a number of around 623,000 units to be shipped during the first quarter of availability. The estimations for the Pre's sales ranged from 500,000 to 865,000. Although forecasts do not come near the performance of the iPhone, they still show that Palm will have a good second half of the year. One more thing that should be mentioned here is that the company's shares went up during the past few days, reaching $13.64 per share (compared to the $1 mark they almost reached six months ago), mainly due to the large number of positive reviews the Pre has seen lately.