Sprint CEO expects Palm Pre shortages, sleeping bag sales skyrocket
By Thomas Ricker 
posted May 20th 2009 7:26AM
posted May 20th 2009 7:26AM
"We don't intend to advertise it heavily early on because we think we are going to have shortages for a while. We won't be able to keep up with demand for the device in the early period of time."If true, if troubled Palm can't meet demand then this is certainly bad news for investors in a white-hot smartphone market with plenty to entice rejected Palm hopefuls this summer. Then again, Nintendo drove gamers nuts (and some would argue, artificially inflate demand) for almost two years with its chronic Wii shortages. Problem is, Palm isn't as fiscally solvent as Nintendo was in 2006... by a long shot.
[Via everythingpre]
Read: We're having cash-flow problems and therefore can't ramp up production / go silly with advertising.
@Look Around You
Since when does Apple create shortages for their products? I bought the first gen iPhone 2 days after it was released, and I walked right into a heavy-traffic Apple store and walked right out with a phone, no line, no shortage. I also stood in line for the 3g the morning it was released, then actually stood in line with a friend later that day. We both managed to walk away with phones. I'm pretty sure Apple doesn't play the "shortages" game.
Agreed. As much as I dislike Apple and wold never own an iphone. I was a Value Added Reseller for Apple for quite some time and they were good about setting a ship date and having product on that date with new releases. They may announce early, but they always gave a ship date to us and kept it.
Anyone else notice that the counter for pre (the ads on this page) is messed up and says it is 46 days till June 6th? They may want to fix that
As another earlier mentioned, adblocker keeps some of us from seeing things like that. I just started up Internet Explorer to see what you were typing about.
Gack!
Sprint has got to be kidding getting that wrong on a site like this.
Attention to detail, eh?
I'm sure anyone who actually wants a Pre knows when it will launch.
he's mincing words. SPRINT will advertiese heavily, however PALM will not. Nevermind the fact the two most likely have a co-marketing agreement.
After selling a thousand pre's, Pre's CEO would announce, "Wow! we sold out in a couple of hours, demand is so high.... bla bla... bla..." But what he'll never mention is the amount of pre's sold.
Hey, if Amazon can do it, so can Palm.
Mark my words:
Palm will find a way to shoot themselves in the foot.
I really don't understand all the excitement. The Pre doesn't represent a superior choice over some of the soon to be launched smartphones. What does the Pre have that is so much better? Please enlighten me.
A very intuitive interface for multitasking. (the cards)
A simple way to automatically sync your email, contacts, and calendars with popular providors (Google, Facebook, etc)
Mutli-touch web browsing experience (only other phone is the iphone)
@krische
The Lg Arena says hi
http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_km900_arena-review-345p8.php
Oh didn't know there was another phone out there that supported it. Good to see it is starting to get more common. That still leaves two of my stronger points though.
Multitasking seems to be effortlessly simple on the Palm Pre. I haven't seen another phone that allows one to manage all of their open apps (one certain brand of "smart" phone doesn't even multitask).
Synergy is not only really neat, but seems to be the way of the future. It certainly beats the hassle and cost of MobileMe.
WebOS. Synergy, the new way to multitask (including Pandora pop up controls), the innovative way it handles notifications, the developer excitement = apps, being on a fast network.
This can be applied to any phone (your statement.) It's exciting because it does cool stuff and looks nice.
Oh yeah I forgot about the sweet ass notification system. It's makes notification systems like on the iphone seem ancient.
30,000?? Taking into account all the Sprint stores, all the Best Buy stores, all the Walmart locations to carry it, etc, that's probably only 1 per store or something. Talk about ridiculous. And you can't tell me that they couldn't manufacture more than that. That is probably like 1 day's worth of production in one of those factories in China. The Palm Pre fanboys have a right to be upset about this one.
I didn't hype that rumor as FACTUAL, merely that it for sure is making the rounds RIGHT NOW, for example:
http://discussion.treocentral.com/palm-pre/180256-hope-not-true-only-30000-units-launch.html
Lol!
Best Buy only opened their 1000th store in 2008.
Walmart has about 3935 stores in the U.S..
Sprint has around 1500.
So a little north of 6000 locations will need units.
Each will get 5.
Better arrive early because I didnt count online sales.
First the mail in rebate scum, now this. Thanx a lot Palm.
Android ftw.
lol, if you're going to complain about the five minutes it takes to fill out a MIR form for ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS, then you are a lazy idiot. Put it this way, if I were to tell you to put your name and address on a card and mail it to me, and I'd send you $100; would you do it?
or lets even put it this way. Let's say it takes you 10 minutes to fill out the few lines on the form stapled to your receipt you need. That is like someone paying you $1,200/hr.
You mean the same Android with only 1 phone available in the US with a battery life of 3 hours?
Yeah...3 hour battery life FTW...
Go to a Best Buy or Radio Shack to beat the rebate. People love to make something out of nothing.
Yea I just don't understand ppl complaining and complaining about the MIR, even giz has made a full article on the fact that "The real price of the Pre is 299$". What a bunch of idiots. SIMPLE answer: if you don't want to wait 2 month to get your money back, go to BB or radio shack!
I see Walmart is carrying the Pre as well. Do they do instant instead of mail-in?
Idiotic move if true....
There's so many people waiting to see what this phone can do and if it will truly rival the iPhone that it would be dumb to not at least a decent amount in stock at every retailer.
Personally I'm not on the iPhone because it's only touchscreen based and I really like the qwerty keyboard no my Touch Pro. So it will be awkward/hard to get good at texting on a touchscreen phone.
Plus I have a Touch already. And I love music so it would be hard to enjoy that aspect if people are calling and interrupting me while I'm listening to a song or trying to watch a movie I've bought from iTunes....
Nice glasses
The only way there will be a shortage is if Palm ships a joke amount initially in order to create a shortage, like RIM did with the Storm at first.
No way. This is just hype generating talk. How can they even face investors if they can't provide enough units. The WSJ online journal article indicated analyst expect Palm to sell 100,000 by the end of the fiscal year ending in June. I know that's June, but I doubt they'd start with 10K in early June.
When blackberry launched the 8900 for T-Mobile they only sent out 5 per store... even T-Mobile stores... it sucked. I was able to get mine through t-mobile a couple of weeks later but then T-Mobile itself even ran out of em the week after that and customers who wanted to order them through the phone were back ordered : d
Yawn
I might care about the pre when the headline says "Pre available on all carriers"
Any phone + Sprint network = That's a deal breaker ladies. When the Iphone is $199,G1 is $179, & Storm is B1G1 why would anyone leave a better network with a comparable phone? The pre needs to blow my effing mind for the same price or less(No MIRs) for me to purchase one IF it arrives on my network. That's what happens when your last to the touchscreen party.
U AT&T reps must really be scared by the Pre to be coming to Engadget every single day spouting that bullshit about Sprint's network.
Get a freaking life. Sprint's ONLY problem was the customer service and in recent months hell for the past year Sprint has DRASTICALLY IMPROVED their customer service (at least that's been my experience).
Furthermore I've had the Touch Pro from HTC for the last few months and I've nothing but excellent reception in all the areas I go to in NC.
So really quit with this bs. If there's any network I feel is shaky it's AT&T's. Especially considering all the stories I see on Engadget about how the network goes down every so often.
Bottom line is that the Pre + Sprint = Possible Winner
And that is dependent solely on the phone, how much (and how good) the marketing is for this phone from Sprint and Palm, as well as public reception.
For me it's either the Pre, the HTC Touch Pro 2, OR the iPhone (in it's next incarnation).
I am very excited to see the reviews and compare/test out all 3 phones.
Haha, the only company I would say that has a better network that Sprint is Verizon. Seriously, go to the carriers websites and look at their 3G networks. Verizon > Sprint >> AT&T >> T-Mobile. AT&T and T-Mobile's 3G networks are a joke.
Sprint is the best.
I don't work for Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, ATT or any Telecom co.
I guess Sprint is improving since they only lost 182,000 subscribers in Q1 compared to 1.3 million in Q4 2008. Way to go gang!! neat-o!! let's go buy some suits!!!
I've had Sprint and defected. The whole point of a cell phone is to use it anywhere, everytime I walked into a building the signal went from full bars to nada. This is on a major college campus so there isn't a lack of towers. My current carrier has worked quite well for me over the past 3 years.
They always say this. The Dash, G1, etc. were all expected to be sold out and it never did. Just to built a hype. I'm still going to hold back until some reviews are out. I'm most interested in reception and battery life
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the Sprint ad says June 6th but the count down says 46 days?
Woah
This has to be another joke played upon Sprint user. Yesterday after ready the Pre info here on engaget, one of the poster mention that the sprint CEO will create a fake shortage . Which will drive the hype and increase their stock.Unfortunally Mr Hess or who ever is on charge forgets that people will go but most will always wait to see what comes next,which in turn hurts their sale. Now to the poster that said that Hess will do this can you give me the poweball numbers please :-D
This is a really bad idea. First, if they are just trying to feed hype and will actually have enough phones to fill demand, then it looks like the Pre did not meet expectations and it starts to lose momentum.
However, if they really will come up short against demand, then they leave themselves open to people walking away. This isn't the Wii. Nintendo achieved mainstream success with a console that is totally unlike the other 2 main players. If there are no Wii's there is really nothing to buy in its place. On the other hand, the Pre is unproven in the real world and has a boatload of stiff competition. RIM, Apple and HTC all have good alternatives, even some on Sprint. I already think the Pre has an uphill battle being on Sprint, not because of Sprint's quality, but there numbers and past reputation. Now you throw in the idea that it may not be available, and you have people choosing other devices and networks. People don't wait around for a cell phone to come in stock.
I call BS, on two counts. First, I was at an Apple Rumor site earlier today. Saw an ad for the Pre with a 'countdown' timer (that's wrong, as many have pointed out). As I type this now, the same ad is on this page. Sure, I admit, both are places that Sprint would probably target, but, c'mon. That's pretty heavy advertising.
Second, I'm not sure what the total production is, but I'm pretty sure that Palm has been turning as many of these out as possible -- Centro be damned -- at factories in Asia since unveiling it. I think that what the Sprint CEO was talking about was a situation where 2 million people want one at launch -- the iPhone and iPhone 3G had spotty in-stocks for the first few weeks/even months. Based on Pre buzz, I think it's safe to say that they'll have problems keeping them in stock through the summer -- but this is a sign of strength, and not manufacturing bungles.
Good thing there is a walmart a block away from the sprint store i am going to and a best buy ten minutes away...
Also Cashmonee
the reason why the Wii sold so well was because they picked the right time to put it out there. Christmas time. The time where parents need to show their kids they care and want then off the hair for hours on end..LOL..GO Wii the Parental life saver...LOL
p.s Palms need to do well or their stock will take a nose dive that would kill it for good.
HYPE HYPE HYPE up the Pre, Dan.
I think the Pre looks great, but I think those who get the EP plan just to get the Pre may have buyers remorse down the line.
Who the fuck came up with this idea? Palm nor Sprint have the money to watch people with expired contracts go to ATT or T-Mobile or Verizon for their respective flagship smartphones because they can't find a Pre anywhere. They need to be selling these phones as fast as possible.
im sorry but i dont think enough people even know about the pre for demand to exceed supply. i think most pre buyers will be sprint customers anyway. no one is going to leave their carrier for a failing one.
@ Dragonfly,
actually Look_Around_You has a major bug up his ass about Apple in general, not just the iPhone.
He also seems to fall for the most obvious troll-bait every time
WTF is sleeping bag sales remark?
LOL, thats too funny. IPhone 3G kicks it to the curb, why bother.
RT
www.whos-watching.se.tc
I, for one, will not be sleeping out overnight to snatch up a Pre. Reminds me too much of the Apple hype!