That is the number question hitting my email box!  I have wrote about the Pre, excited about the Pre, read everything I can find about the Pre, been on shows about the Pre and you know what?  I don't know.  Just last week I got an email from Sprint teasing us with information about the Pre, but no release date.

So I go to Google as I do almost daily trying to get any piece of information about release date.  Recently Sprint CEO Dan Hesse sat down for an interview with RCR Wireless.  Here's a part of his interview;

RCR: Speaking of handset selection, let's talk about the Palm Pre. How long will Sprint Nextel have exclusivity on the new device?

Hesse: We haven't commented on how long the exclusivity period lasts. Palm and Sprint have agreed that we won't comment on that.

RCR: Is there a scheduled release date?

Hesse: We haven't announced that. The plan of both companies is to have [Palm Pre] on the market in the first half of the year. Obviously when you're bringing out a new device with this level of sophistication and functionality there's a lot of work required.

The guys at Palm are working 24/7 and we're working 24/7 to bring it out as soon as we can, but we're not going to bring it out until we're really confident that the launch is going to be really successful in terms of how it operates. Of course to be able to produce the devices we want to make sure that there's enough. Clearly it's going to be a device that's going to be in high demand and it is going to be in shortage no matter when we launch it, but we don't want it to be too early where there's only a handful of Pres in the whole country.

We want to make sure that we can also have production ramped up at a reasonable level before we launch the product. There are a lot of variables that go into when we're going to launch it. But both Sprint and Palm are very focused on launching as soon as we can and our target is to launch in the first half. There are also no price details yet.

One thing I read is Palm is gearing up production for a "Few Million" units.  Sprint and Palm are definitely working the pre (on pun intended) release hype.  So if I find anything out I will be passing it on!

Dick Betts

National Speaker Real Estate

Mobile Technology Trainer

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