Palm Delivers the Treo 650 to India

Posted By: Ryan Tuesday, October 11, 2005 10:02:58 AM

Palm today announced that its award-winning Palm Treo 650 smartphone is now available on the Hutch network in India.

"The Treo 650 smartphone provides Hutch customers with increased mobility and a way to simplify their business and personal lives with an all-in-one device," said Paul Blinkhorn, vice president for Palm Asia Pacific. "Whether it's reviewing email, viewing a presentation or simply making a conference call, the Treo 650 smartphone lets busy people manage the critical components of their lives while out of the office."

Naveen Chopra, corporate vice president of Group Marketing at Hutchison Essar, said, "Hutch is committed to bringing its customers value-added services that consistently enhance their service experience and help manage business with optimum efficiency, even while on the move. The Treo 650 smartphone is truly a professional mobile handset that will aid Hutch customers in optimizing our high-end services."

Read the PalmInfocenter Treo 650 review.

Article Comments

 (14 comments)

The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. PalmInfocenter is not responsible for them in any way.
Please Login or register here to add your comments.

Start a new Comment Down

Clear signs

achitnis @ 10/11/2005 2:14:05 PM # Q
This is a sure sign that they have excess stocks and are clearing inventory prior to EOLing the product.


Atul Chitnis
http://atulchitnis.net

RE: Clear signs
twizza @ 10/11/2005 2:15:32 PM # Q
uh...how do u get that from another market now selling an impressive product. If it were the report that "there were no 650s to deleiver to India" then you would have a point; but nothing in that report makes that lead possible. If anything, it points to the 650 still being produced.

mobileministrymagazine.com
antoinerjwright.com
RE: Clear signs
achitnis @ 10/11/2005 2:56:50 PM # Q
Simple - I am from India and in the industry.

Typically, a commodity hardware product hits India only after it has seen its heyday in other markets, and is being phased out. Take a pointer from the fact that you could buy a T1 in India only after it had disappeared from American and European markets, the T2 became available only after the T3 appeared in the USA, and the T3 appeared after the T5 was released. The Treo 600 became available only after the 650 was released.

India has been the favourite dumping grounds for people with old stocks of hardware that have no market anymore in the USA and Europe. It's been the bane of our lives here for years. Do you know that LCD monitors are just becoming available here? They must have dumped the world's entire unwanted stock of CRTs here first! :)



Atul Chitnis
http://atulchitnis.net

RE: Clear signs
cervezas @ 10/11/2005 3:04:12 PM # Q
Do you know that LCD monitors are just becoming available here?

LCD monitors. Wow, I remember those. Remember back before we all used 50" plasma monitors we had like those tiny 21" LCD things like they used to use in laptops?

;-)

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

RE: Clear signs
Rome @ 10/11/2005 5:00:27 PM # Q
"Simple - I am from India and in the industry."

If that makes you an expert in technology, then I must be an expert on George W. Bush since I am from Texas and have previously worked in the politics.



RE: Clear signs
Rome @ 10/11/2005 5:12:52 PM # Q
By the way, cell phones, including smartphones, are sold differently from your typical technology hardware like PCs and PDAs. Go to www.palm.com and download their latest 10K and it will explain how Treos are distributed differently from their PDAs.

RE: Clear signs
parambyte @ 10/12/2005 6:19:25 AM # Q
thr problem with indian carriers is they charge far too much for specialised services, almost in direct dollar conversions, making these services disproportionately expensive, compared to the economy, Airtel India's blackberry Service charges some Rs 1100 per month ONLY for BB service, which is more than the total per month voice spend of most people. (almost twice as much in MOST cases). So most of BB users in india are people who's companies pay for the service. Individual users will not find it making sense. I hope Hutch has a proper Pricing Plan in mind for this.

As an Individual User if i had to use Airtel's BB service in India, I would not want to pay more than Rs 200 a month for Push Email. Anything more than that I would rather look for a cyber cafe, or get a series 60 smartphone and Airtel GPRS at Rs 150 pm, unlimited.

At a time when Airtel India is chargin Rs 150 pm, for unlimited GPRS access, Hutch is charging Rs 600 (let me know if its become lower now)! So i expect Treo 650 to be that much more expensive...
At the moment it seems better to take an unlocked Treo 650 and use it on Airtel's GPRS network!

RE: Clear signs
LiveFaith @ 10/12/2005 1:10:32 PM # Q
Atul may have a point directly or indirectly. The Treo 650 has been on the shelves for quite a while now. The 700 may get it's own Palm OS version before soon, if for no other reason to get free of the idiotic 24MB limitation. The 650 could be entering the territoty of the 600 in a few months, with the advent of a non-crippled 700p? India is not the only place where lower margin tech still flows, so it's not inconceivable.

One other thing. Watching little Palm create all these worldwide carrier contracts is giving them a huge distribution footprint. This is of course good for selling Treo 650s, but also greases the rails for all the others coming down the tracks. I imagine this as another reason that investors keep pushing up the stock price on a company that still uses Pilot 1000 alarms on it's PDAs announced today ... Fall, 2005!

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

RE: Clear signs
rye&ginger @ 10/13/2005 12:42:22 AM # Q
[quote]thr problem with indian carriers is they charge far too much for specialised services[/quote]

The same problem exists in Canada. voice service is fairly affordable, but data service is priced so high few people use it and this discourages use. It is a $100 for 100 Mb for example, and then more expensive per MB if you get cheaper packages. I have a Treo 600 and only have 3Mb per month and dont use the GPRS because of the pricing.

RE: Clear signs
parambyte @ 10/13/2005 4:08:09 AM # Q
maybe teh service providers should offer extremely cheap data services, then get users hooked onto it. later they can evolve better plans. of course they will have to put up download firewalls else teh network will be congested beyond use..

still no news of Hutch Treo 650 on the Hutch Site or the papers...
Wonder if they will use Blackberry Connect on the Treo...

RE: Clear signs
ocspub @ 10/15/2005 6:40:23 PM # Q
> India has been the favourite dumping grounds for people
> with old stocks of hardware that have no market anymore
> in the USA and Europe.

Oh really? And there I thought Spain, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland were the dumping ground for old stuff, given that -- according to PIC's News Archive -- they all recently had introductions of the Treo 650 :)

Oliver

Visit www.tapland.com for Zodiac news and discussion.

RE: Clear signs
jbeedham @ 10/18/2005 7:39:01 PM # Q
One thing you should recognize is that if you live in India that the average person in India cannot afford what the average person in the USA or Europe can. That will explain why you guys may not always be first on the list to get products. Also, while I believe the future for India may be very great and bright, it still has a long ways to go. Many reforms are needed in India. A free market economy still does not exist in India. Your government has a lot of work to do.

-------------------------------------------------------
Proud owner of a Sony TJ-37!
Reply to this comment

Import Duty issues for Treo in India

diamond8 @ 10/13/2005 8:45:00 AM # Q
Palm was facing problems importing Treos in India.
There are different import dutied for Mobile phones & PDAs.
The customs were not able to decide whether the Treo is a phone or a PDA.
They were also not believing the Palm India Sales head that Palm had now started making phones (Treos).

Looks like the matter has been solved. Dont know which duty structure they fall in however.
Had also heard a year back that Reliance infocomm was testing the CDMA Treo 600.

Reply to this comment

ha ha face it bloke

sunnyawesome @ 10/15/2005 2:54:17 PM # Q
someone here said"India has been the

favourite dumping grounds for people

with old stocks of hardware that have

no market anymore in the USA and

Europe"

I think u ve not been out ur home

mate..I too live in India(New Delhi).

I've bought all of my gadgets in India

itself at almost same price
Zire 71 @ 14000(in year 2003 at the

time it was launched)
HP iPAQ 2215 @ 15000(its actual price

on the internet at that time was

around $380 !!)
Now I am using XDA O2 mini which I

bought at Rs25000(ie <$600 which is

its official price)
Most striking thing is that I bought

them within the month they were

launched !!

Open your eyes mr, those days are over

regards,
KAMAL


Reply to this comment
Start a New Comment Thread Top

Account

Register Register | Login Log in
user:
pass: