It has been reported in a recent article at CNBC that Sprint will have exclusive rights to sell the Palm Pre in the United States through 2009 (and possibly longer). This is a bit of a departure from the strategy of Palm in years past. When Palm launched the very successful Treo 600, they set a new standard for PDAPhones makers in that they were able to do a global launch with very little lag. There were CDMA and GSM versions of the Treo 600 available at nearly every major carrier around the globe. The Treo 600 went on to make a major impact on the market.

It seems that for the last year and a half, almost every move in the PDAPhone space is something designed to copy or react to Apple's wildly successful iPhone. While Palm has been working on their next generation product for years and years, I believe the Pre can still be categorized as Palm's response to the iPhone. There is much iPhone like inspiration, yet it maintains a Palm feel and also introduces a totally new platform. So I have to ask if this exclusive deal is also designed to copy Apple's exclusive arrangement with AT&T Wireless in the US. If you are going to mimic another company's moves, it is important to understand the purpose behind it. My personal opinion is that Apple slowed down the sales of the iPhone by restricting it to AT&T. And for Apple, making their first step into the whole mobile arena, it was important to not make a big false start by doing too much, too fast. Palm, on the other hand, has been watching their marketshare erode in the last several years. They are a company that has been able to launch and support a large distribution in the past. So is it a good idea for a device maker and carrier, who are both seeing major losses in marketshare, to partner on such an important product launch?

I believe that the exclusive arrangement certainly favors Sprint, and hurts Palm. Palm has proven themselves capable of large launches with many carriers and geographies. Given that they are introducing a brand new platform, they are taking a huge risk that they will be able to repeat the success of the iPhone. There are certainly plenty of Palm fans out there, but the Pre is a brand new platform that doesn't leverage much from the old Palm devices. I like to see strong open competition in the market, and a new platform is exciting. But I fear that they will limit themselves too much, which will hurt the development of 3rd party applications and prevent the Pre from making a major dent in marketshare to reverse the losses they've taken since the iPhone was introduced.

History will show whether this risk was wise for Palm, but what do you think? Anyone care to make a prediction of their own?