Analyst sez Treo 700p on Sprint early next year

Most of the info in Sagio Investments' recent analyst report about Palm is stuff we already knew, like that the Windows Mobile-powered Treo 700w will be out early next year and that they're working on a low-end handset codenamed "Lowrider" and sleeker midrange phone codenamed "Hollywood", but on the second to last page of there is one little bit of juiciness — namely that they believe that early next year Sprint will be getting an exclusive on the new Palm-powered Treo 700p. Of course, they don't reveal anything we'd really like to know, like which version of the Palm OS the 700p will be running and whether it'll have EV-DO, WiFi, a better camera, etc, but we'll live.

UPDATE: For what it's worth, someone from Sagio just sent us this:

Hi I am the investment Manager of Sagio , this report is not supposed to be taken out of the website and was not issued today but last month. On the Sagio Investments website our disclaimer is very clear and we have 0 intention of misleading investors with our research. Taken out of its natural context the research might be misleading and as such I would ask you to remove it from your website or at least to stae very clearly that we own 5.04% oF PALM and as such we are not very partial (actually it is the other way around: its because we love the comapont that we acquired so many shares but that concept seems difficult to explain now). Concerning Palm pipeline I would be happy to discuss it with you, by the way at the time of the report (october and the date is clearly stated on page 1) we thought treo 700p would come out at the same time than the 700w now it looks like it will be march. Thanks and sorry for the confusion I just want to avoid misleading investors.

[UPioneer @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

good news. amazing as it is, the treo 650 is aging. bring windows mobile 5 to sprint/nextel dog gonnit!! Little off topic, the i930 (Win Mobile 2003se) is the best thing going for nextel, but after a few weeks of use, is not all its cracked up to be.

[Galley @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

Windows Mobile devices are kinda like Nintendo GameCubes. I know they exist, but I've never actually met anyone that has one. ;-)

[Paul @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

I just hope it comes to Orange in the UK, even if it means having to live with the phone being Orangified (for our American friends, Vodafone - part owner of Verizon wireless - and Orange - owned by Telecom France modify their phones with their crap software). I would much prefer a Palm version because I hate ActiveSync (having to delete partnerships when device is no longer recognised or AS just crashing altogether resulting in a reboot) and now that I am on a Mac, Palm at least still provides software for the Mac platform even if they don't support it.

I hope the release onto a UK network happens alot quicker than the Treo 650's release onto Orange UK, which took a 7 - 8 months after it was released in the states

[Karl-Koenig Koenigsson @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

Let's hope that they add the oddly missing SMS feature: request reciept for message read.

I was so annoyed when I noticed that this function was missing in the 650. I mean, SMS read reciept has been around since my first steam driven Nokia, back in 1995... I thought it was something all GSM mobiles were obliged to have.

[Gekko @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

Karl - Free App to add SMS Feature to the Palm Treo 650:

http://www.ludustech.com/sharkmsg/

[pixelator @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

It's not the 650 hardware that's showing age, it's the 'Tr? ancient PalmOS 5. The 700w with WinMob 5.0 is almost assured to be a paragon of stability and speed by comparison.

Maybe someday Access and/or Palm will *finally* deliver a new PalmOS that's no longer a hacked-up, patched-up 7 year old OS. Until then, the 700w looks a lot more reliable than any 700p, regardless of any new features.

[Surur @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

Apparently this "analyst" recently bought 5% of Palm, and is trying to talk the share price up. The report is also filled with inaccuracies e.g. Nokia owning 17% of the worldwide smartphone market (more like 71% in reality), so everything they write should be taken with a large measure of salt.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1344850/000095012305013878/0000950123-05-013878-index.htm

Surur

[Scott R @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

"The 700w with WinMob 5.0 is almost assured to be a paragon of stability and speed by comparison."

Oops. You haven't played with any WM5 devices, I take it? Based on my experience with the PPC-6700 and recent observations by Dell Axim WM5 "upgraders", the words "stability" and "speed" are not likely to be associated with WM5 anytime soon.

[Orneta @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

#6, you have the right idea. With the release of a Windows Mobile Palm, obviously the Palm OS designs have been overshadowed, and are sure to be extinct soon.

[acidreflux @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

"The 700w with WinMob 5.0 is almost assured to be a paragon of stability and speed by comparison."



...Yeah, I assure you.



I really doubt WM5 nudging past the POS in terms of performance. Further, Garnet is quite stable.

[JoeBob @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

"With the release of a Windows Mobile Palm, obviously the Palm OS designs have been overshadowed, and are sure to be extinct soon."

Wow, if I had a dime for every time I've read that over the past 6 years, I'd have a metric assload of dimes.

Cue "Rumors Of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated"...

[J. R. S. Y. @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

Apparently the Moto Q (CDMA) is gonna be x-clusive to Verizon for the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2006 as the Treo 700w , the Blackberry 8700 is gonna be xclusive to Cingular....

that being said my neighbor is a young marketing exec for Sprint and he told me and I quote " we had the fisrt Win5 on the U. S. market hoping to create a good rapport with Micrisoft but Verizon gets the good deal, but we are happy because the square screen with landscape is pure GENIOUS... NOT!!! In order to give a deathblow to Mocrosoft/ Verizon we have ask palm to give us plain and simply a LifeDrive w/keyboard and phone capacity it is the only way to take over the market... plus GOOGLE has seen our deal with the cable companies (black matter) and wants in the wireless bussiness bad". Halso told me that Sprint can't go bag to a crappy same ol same ol refurbished stuff. the treo 700w is a first but that palm has been working on this "flagship" for some time and that sprint has always supported the palm os since the get go. Well he was expressing that over dinner between families .

[Jason @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

HEY J.R.S.Y "HUH" "WHAT" Are u trying to say that ur friend who works for sprint feels screwed over by palm because they gave verizon the best deal on the 700p when sprint was there when company's didn't have much faith in a smartphone period and that now google is jumping on board with sprint/nextel and they're asking palm to convert their life drive into the ultimate smartphone that uses wifi and evdo and is VOIP capable with a 4gig hardrive which i bet will have a sidekickish sliding keybord. Is that right?

[Jason @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

If that's what your trying to say tell him to join the club as millions of treo 650 users can tell you when it comes to getting simple things like wifi on our treo's. We've been begging for wifi on for years and what do we get: a HUGE wifi sled from another company. I'll gladly walk with an extra battery to compensate for the power as opposed to that shit.

[M LINES @ Dec 19th 2005 12:20AM]

All I can say is a I know for a fact that Cingular was offered the exclusive 2 quarter rights to to the treo 700w but turned it down. They WILL get the rights to the 700p. And as far as there new blackberry venture... I hope people aren't dumb enought to buy blackberrys until we find out whats going on. Although verizon is really stepping it up as far as getting new phones... but due to them operating on a CDMA network I switched long ago to GSM. However it is said they are considering making the switch...