Sprint Already Training Employees on the Pre?

Rumor: A new report on electronista claims that Sprint employees have already begun their advance training on usage and selling techniques for the new Palm Pre. The story is apparently supported by some Twitter posts of a Yahoo employee. According the report, unnamed Sprint employees have revealed that the Pre is now expected to arrive in-store in June, making for an arrival on the absolute tail end of the 1H '09 release window mentioned by Palm the Pre's CES launch earlier this month.

The article also goes on to note the historical refresh history of the Pre's chief competition, Apple's iPhone, which launched in June 2007 and received its 3G update in July of last year. Presumably Palm and Sprint would only have a brief window of opportunity to aggressively push the Pre against the current iPhone 3G before Apple counters with their device's 3rd-generation release, assuming the simmering legal war of words does not pick up enough steam to encumber Palm's anticipated Pre release date.

So assuming this and the latest rumors are correct, Palm's 2009 release schedule will have the Windows Mobile-powered Treo Pro arriving at Sprint stores on or around February 15th, with the Pre arriving sometime in June.

Also, as a very minor yet interesting update to last friday's story, an e-mail from a Sprint retail store rep has been posted to the TreoCentral forums. The e-mail confirms the Treo Pro's delay until February 15th and indicates that the release date was delayed by Palm and not by Sprint. The e-mail then states that a "patch" would be available at launch and "There were no details as to why".

(Thanks, SeldomVisitor)

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No, no, no....

elChe @ 1/26/2009 11:37:45 AM # Q
That is a lot of time for competitors to tweak whatever offerings they have been planning. It doesn't makes much sense strategy-wise, to launch close to a possible Apple launch. Or may be Palm has something more under its sleeve...
anyway, more wait for the Pre

RE: No, no, no....
alandrew @ 1/26/2009 11:56:38 AM # Q
This sounds odd as I have heard that Pre is expected in April in South Africa on GSM network ?
Maybe its all hype and Pre will be pre-june just to Piss Off Apple heee !

Treo600>>Treo680>>Centro>>Pre
RE: No, no, no....
CFreymarc @ 1/31/2009 12:36:55 PM # Q
My prediction is that it will hit the market a lot sooner than anticipated. It will be a classic "under promise, over deliver" move. This is unlike Apple's "iDay" with long lines in front of Apple stores.

I'd put money down that within sixty to ninety days, press releases will go out saying "The Pre is shipping today!" or something like that. The Sprint stores' staff will be surprised with early morning briefings by store managers that were briefed the night before the launch to keep any minimum wage, Internet savvy, 40-year-old virgin types from blogging that it is coming out soon.

Then, Palm Infocenter types will call in sick, go to a Sprint store, pick up their Pre and have feelings similar to the first time they had sex (if they ever had sex at all) using this darling. Once the honeymoon is over, they will start to complain about something of the Pre on this site and others in a manner that has kept them from ever having a sustained sexual relationship.

Lock and load boys!

RE: No, no, no....
SeldomVisitor @ 1/31/2009 12:44:53 PM # Q
The use of the Pre is too complicated to allow such a scenario. There undoubtedly is a reason Sprint has been rumored to be training people already.

Or do people think accessing 479 different web services, each with their own data formats, logins, etc, and combining the results is a trivial thing?


RE: No, no, no....
freakout @ 1/31/2009 3:28:09 PM # Q
There undoubtedly is a reason Sprint has been rumored to be training people already.

Like there is "undoubtedly" a reason the U.S. government is rumoured to be conducting alien autopsies at Area 51?

Or do people think accessing 479 different web services, each with their own data formats, logins, etc, and combining the results is a trivial thing?

Mmmmmmmmmmm. Y'know, I think you're right SV. Typing in a username + password on first use is really going to stump people. I'm getting a headache just thinking about it. Pass the aspirin.


RE: No, no, no....
CFreymarc @ 1/31/2009 3:49:22 PM # Q
I wouldn't be surprised if training is happening with the Sprint sales folks. However, WHEN it launches is not going to be told to the sales drones any time in advance. Who knows, they may continue training after the launch as the customers are using them. I'm going to hang at a local Sprint store just to watch the folly of everyone running out of their parents basements and dorm rooms to get one the day this egg hatches.
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Did Palm add a new Pre slipcase?

mikecane @ 1/27/2009 11:02:49 AM # Q
I don't recall seeing this before today. Is it new?
http://www.palm.com/us/products/accessories/slip-case.html#tab2

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Palm better get this Pre out soon

Gekko @ 1/29/2009 3:40:56 PM # Q

Palm better get this Pre out soon. there's no time to waste. every day that goes by is many more lost customers to Apple, BB, Android et al. time is not a luxury. get it out quick and get it out right.

the Palm ecosystem is toast and the iPhone App Store has taken over. i see App store commercials every day.

condition critical. there is no more time to waste.



RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
mikecane @ 1/29/2009 4:28:02 PM # Q
No, they have to get it out when it's BUG-FREE and COMPLETE. Not to wag their damned dicks around in a stupid pissing contest that would sink the company.

Android? Puhleeze. WinMob? palmsolo spent *money* on the frikkin top-of-the-line Xperia and returned it within a day. When he switched out of the Music Panel *while playing music*, the music *stopped*. Yeah, so much for that "multitasking" of WinMob. WinMob is the same pig underneath all that lipstick.

And wtf do you care, anyway? You heart your kiddie Centro and don't want a grown-up's Pre.

Oh, and too bad you can't get this (yet?) in the US of A:
http://www.spotify.com/en/

Seems to be something you'd like it.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 1/29/2009 4:35:45 PM # Q

i said -

get it out quick and get it out right.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 1/30/2009 4:04:08 PM # Q

they better hurry up. i'm losing patience and losing interest.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
mikecane @ 1/30/2009 4:27:21 PM # Q
Who the hell cares if YOU lose interest? Go head: buy an iPhone, a NOKIA, or a G1, or a WinMob. Knock yourself out. No, I mean really: KNOCK yourself OUT.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
hkklife @ 1/30/2009 4:31:35 PM # Q
I'm not losing interest, just eager to see what the FOLLOWUP device to the Pre is gonna be!

And besides, in any direction I go there are only compromises! I might as well buy a VZW Centro and hunker down for another year, huh?

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 1/30/2009 4:40:42 PM # Q

if palm keeps dicking around i'll just stick with my centro and be happy. it does the job.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
freakout @ 1/30/2009 5:29:19 PM # Q
My Centro does the job, but I'm so freaking sick of 2G. I can't even get EDGE on this damn thing - all the Aussie networks jumped straight from GPRS to UMTS/HSDPA.

'course, there's always the Treo Pro, or iPhone, but now that I know Pre's on the way sometime in the next six months, I can hold on... so long as the GSM version follows closely on the heels of the CDMA one.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
CFreymarc @ 1/31/2009 3:56:56 PM # Q
You are assuming that iPhone customers and Pre customers are the same crowd.

There are many people out there that see the Apple logo with the slick white, black and chrome products and get totally turned off. Some call it "over chic." The Pre is going right after those folks that would love to see Cupertino in burn in flames. What the exact numbers are is a good question.

IMO, the iPhone is not going to be the hardest hit from this. Devices like the Sidekick and Blackberry users are going to mostly migrate to this platform. I think this is mostly due to the hardware keyboard and the web usage, text and email apps that don't work through a central server in Canada.

Also, another prediction of mine is that there will be a special ROM for Federal employee use. This will cause Obama to drop his Blackberry because you can run a secure kernal on the Pre since it is Linux.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 1/31/2009 5:26:51 PM # Q

nich apple haters won't keep palm in business. niche markets won't keep palm in business. they need mass appeal and they need to steal market share from EVERYBODY in order to survive.

they better get this puppy out soon before the wheels fall off. strike while the iron is hot!



RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 1/31/2009 11:14:57 PM # Q

i come back from the bar x hours later and i get nothing??????????????

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
twrock @ 2/1/2009 1:48:32 AM # Q
^^ What were you looking for, brownie points?

(Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.)


"twrock is infamous around these parts"
(from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating)

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
freakout @ 2/1/2009 4:54:58 AM # Q
Okay Lizardman, here's something. You say:

they need mass appeal and they need to steal market share from EVERYBODY in order to survive.

and you're right. They'll do it easily though, 'cause Pre is shaping up to be the "social networking" phone. Here's an interesting blog from way back on iDay 2007, when iPhone first came out:

http://petersmagnusson.com/2007/07/01/iphones-missing-killer-app-social-networking/
(courtesy of Cane's PrePoint blog)

Magnusson makes the argument that sticking to the old paradigms of mobile computers - i.e. being an extension of your desktop, rather than the cloud - iPhone didn't light the way for the mobile market in the same way that iPod did for the music-player market and missed a massive opportunity to surf the latest technological wave. (And oh boy, is web integration gonna be a big wave. to quote myself from my Facebook for PalmOS review: "Communication is the core of what has made social networks so popular, and building them into our phones is an obvious step in their evolution." Palm obviously had the same thought and ran with it. Ran very, very far...)

In some areas, he predicts what we've seen from webOS nearly dead-on, from the online calendars to the mega-messaging. Other ideas that are in there are going to be super-easy to implement, thanks to webOS's use of web languages for app building and allowing them access to PIM and notifications.

For once, Palm are way ahead of the curve. Pre and webOS will do just fine, even if we do have to wait till June. What they've done is not going to be so simple for others to clone. They will be cloned eventually, but I reckon it won't be till next year at the earliest. Android will probably be first, given Google's such a big web player. From what we've seen and heard of WinMob 7, Microsoft are firmly focussed on cloning iPhone and will be forced to play catch-up again.

And Apple? Apple are too arrogant. Too controlling. Too domineering. They haven't played nice with developers and they don't really like the idea of you being a part of anyone else's ecosystem. iPhone will continue to be successful, but will eventually be relegated to the same niche in the mobile market as Macs are on the desktop: mainly for people who just have to make fashion statements with their technology.

The wheels ain't gonna fall off Palm again for a long time.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
SeldomVisitor @ 2/1/2009 5:28:34 AM # Q
> ...What they've done is not going to be so simple for others to clone...

Uh...what's hard about what Palm has done?

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 2/1/2009 7:55:58 AM # Q

1. the web contacts feed etc. is nothing special and hardly a killer app and can be easily done by others including apple if not already.
2. winmob and BB own the corporate enterprise market. i don't see IT managers switching platforms to webOS/Pre any time soon.
3. i think given the choice between the iphone and the Pre, 99% of the masses will choose the iphone. why? because it's better?* not necessarily. but apple has the brand and the cachet and the ecosystem and the momentum and the inertia. and they make a nice product which people are passionate about. and everybody and their brother has an itunes music collection they want to play on their smartphone.

it might be too little too late for palm.

*"We're better than you are. We have better stuff."

"You don't get it, Steve. That doesn't matter!"

(yes hungover)

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
mikecane @ 2/1/2009 9:01:10 AM # Q
Oh Christ. What a frikkin waste of words. Nothing is going to penetrate Gekko's alcohol/pr0n-drenched head, so why bother? He's sitting there unshaven in his underwear with his Centro and wah-wah-waaahing like a child.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
abosco @ 2/1/2009 9:50:07 AM # Q
Has cloud computing suddenly taken off while I was asleep? As far as I can tell, it's solving a problem that does not exist. I fail to see why this is going to be the wave of the future. I don't want all of my information remotely stored.

-Bosco
m105 -> NX70v -> NX80v -> iPhone -> iPhone 3G
RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 2/1/2009 12:31:20 PM # Q
RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
freakout @ 2/1/2009 12:57:42 PM # Q
SeldomVisitor:
Uh...what's hard about what Palm has done?

ROFL. The least you could do is be consistent from post to post, SV. (You are the same SV that asked "do people think accessing 479 different web services, each with their own data formats, logins, etc, and combining the results is a trivial thing?" in this post? http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/7121/#149592 )


Gekko:
1. the web contacts feed etc. is nothing special and hardly a killer app and can be easily done by others including apple if not already.

Copy and paste could also be easily done by Apple, but two years later and it's still nowhere in sight...

2. winmob and BB own the corporate enterprise market. i don't see IT managers switching platforms to webOS/Pre any time soon.

Good thing Palm sell WinMob phones then. :P Theirs might also have the huge advantage of a webOS environment available to them, if Beersie's rampant (but fun) speculation on the potential universal porting of webOS proves accurate.

3. i think given the choice between the iphone and the Pre, 99% of the masses will choose the iphone. why? because it's better?* not necessarily. but apple has the brand and the cachet and the ecosystem and the momentum and the inertia. and they make a nice product which people are passionate about. and everybody and their brother has an itunes music collection they want to play on their smartphone.

Since iTunes is now (in the process of becoming) DRM-free, that last bit's a moot point. Hell, even I might buy an iTunes track or two now.

Look, my opinion of the iPhone is well-known by now so it's pointless to go over it again. But I think you overestimate its appeal and its foothold. It's successful, it'll continue to be successful. But Palm's focus has always been PIM and functional mobile computing, which are universal needs, even for those who don't use their phones as media players.

(I stupidly said myself PIM wasn't a killer app anymore: http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9664/light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-7-things-we-need-from-nova/ That was before I saw Pre and realised myself just how many different places I have PIM data now. I said Palm needed "superior sync" without really thinking about it very deeply... now I'm convinced that's what's going to help them claw back their own cachet.)

abosco:
Has cloud computing suddenly taken off while I was asleep? As far as I can tell, it's solving a problem that does not exist. I fail to see why this is going to be the wave of the future. I don't want all of my information remotely stored.

Dude, at least some of your information is already remotely stored. You're on Facebook, right? Use a web email service at all? Aside from that, though, it's not just about having your info in the cloud... Read this again if you didn't before:

http://petersmagnusson.com/2007/07/01/iphones-missing-killer-app-social-networking/

Magnusson's clearly a big iPhone fan, but even he sees the potential in a phone focused on the web generation.

By provding a real web application environment Palm are already one step ahead. iPhone's original "web apps" were laughed at because they were all just custom web pages that had to be accessed via the browser, couldn't make use of your own locally stored information, couldn't give you notifications, couldn't run in the background. Heck, they couldn't even install their own icon in the launcher. Pre's are going to be a different kettle of fish.

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 -> Treo 650 -> Treo 680 -> Centro

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
mikecane @ 2/1/2009 3:34:04 PM # Q
Jaysus, man, save yourself the time already!!

They'll "get it" when the Pre is out and SEE what it can do.

Just like Colligan finally "got" what a smartphone *could* be once Apple showed the way.

Hell, I'm one of the most anti-social SOBs on this planet, and *I* get the social aspects of the Pre and the advantages of that. The rest of these goiks lack imagination. I mean, come on, you're trying to educate GEKKO?! He kisses a portrait of Reagan before going to sleep!!

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
SeldomVisitor @ 2/1/2009 4:08:55 PM # Q
> ...ROFL. The least you could do is be consistent from post
> to post, SV. (You are the same SV that asked "do people think
> accessing 479 different web services, each with their own data
> formats, logins, etc, and combining the results is a trivial thing?"
> in this post? http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/7121/#149592 )...

Silly person.

Palm doesn't do that.

That's why I made THAT post.

And the post you responded to asks "Is what Palm REALLY does difficult?".

Don't get confused with McNamee pure...imagination...with reality.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
freakout @ 2/1/2009 7:01:03 PM # Q
Palm doesn't do that.

That's why I made THAT post.

Oh, how fun it is to watch you twist and contort when you're trapped within your own web of steaming bullshit!

No, Doubting Thomas, you made that post because (as per your usual modus operandi) you were trying to spread FUD about Palm. This time, you were hinting at Pre/webOS being too complicated for the average user to easily use, and too "complicated" for Sprint employees to quickly learn. Complete rubbish - also as per usual - although you did inadvertently make another, better point: what Palm has done is not something that's going to be particularly easy for competitors to replicate on the back-end.

Oh, replicate it they will - but it's not something that's going to be, say, pushed out in next week's software update.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
freakout @ 2/2/2009 11:32:11 AM # Q
^^ A beta version of an OS X desktop client for online folder sync is released.

This has what exactly to do with a cross-platform web-based development environment tied into your PIM data based on a built-for-mobile version of Linux...?

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
AdamaDBrown @ 2/2/2009 4:19:23 PM # Q
Mike, you don't know what you're talking about with Windows Mobile, so please don't pretend that you do. I don't know what the deal is with the SE XPeria, but I can tell you that every Windows device ever made plays music in the background.

Bosco... I have to somewhat agree with you, but at the same time there's an argument to be made. I use Gmail/GTalk, Blogger, and Facebook, just off the top of my head, and I'm sure there are people who use a lot more than that. Flickr, Twitter, Myspace...

I suppose it comes down to what you define as "cloud computing." In terms of having your "smart"phone as a dumb portal to online services, you're right, it's a solution in search of a problem. But there are legitimate uses for having something which hooks up to common online services like those.

Of course, that's not an excuse to reducing the other capabilities of a given platform: you can just as easily interface to online services from a device that also includes robust PC sync and native C applications.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 2/2/2009 5:02:19 PM # Q
Gmail/GTalk - NO
Blogger - NO
Facebook - NO
Flickr - NO
Twitter - NO
Myspace - NO
RockBand - NO
Wii/Xbox/PS - NO
ipod/iPhone/iTunes - NO
Netflix - NO
LOTR - NO
Tivo - NO
Tattoos - NO

WTF????????????? AM I GETTING OLD????????????????????????????????????



RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 2/2/2009 5:04:25 PM # Q

i used to be the YOUNG GUY - ON THE CUTTING EDGE! and i wake up one day and i'm the "old man", out of the trendy technological loop with no interest in much of it!!!

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
mikecane @ 2/2/2009 5:07:53 PM # Q
>>>Mike, you don't know what you're talking about with Windows Mobile, so please don't pretend that you do. I don't know what the deal is with the SE XPeria, but I can tell you that every Windows device ever made plays music in the background.

Hey, go argue with palmsolo who EXPERIENCED that, wrote about it, and RETURNED the frikkin unit. I've owned a PPC. I *know* it can do bg music, having done it. So WTF happened with the overpriced Sony?!

>>>i used to be the YOUNG GUY - ON THE CUTTING EDGE! and i wake up one day and i'm the "old man", out of the trendy technological loop with no interest in much of it!!!

Don't worry about it, Gekko. You'd only have even more people laughing at you than now.

>>>Tattoos - NO

WTF is that doing in there? And you left out piercings! You ARE old!

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 2/2/2009 5:10:13 PM # Q
RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
freakout @ 2/3/2009 2:29:13 AM # Q
RockBand - NO

Oh, Gekko. You are missing out. Big-time. Even my Mum likes Rock Band and she's 50. What are you, like 80 or something?

LOTR - NO

This, I can agree on. Most. Overrated. Movies. EVER.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
SeldomVisitor @ 2/3/2009 3:13:43 AM # Q
> ...Even my Mum likes Rock Band and she's 50....

Hubba hubba! A young chick! Post a pic!

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 2/8/2009 10:49:27 AM # Q

i'm going to boycott the pre if they don't get it out soon. f 'em. i'm tired of all this dicking around for the last X years.

RE: Palm better get this Pre out soon
Gekko @ 2/9/2009 11:43:23 AM # Q

I SAID - they better get this pig out SOON!

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