Verizon Ceasing Palm Promos Soon?

Posted By: Kris Keilhack Monday, March 22, 2010 8:38:38 AM

verizon pre plus promo Rumor: The LA Examiner Gadgets column (and syndicated through all other Examiner outlets nationwide) has posted a brief article that claims Verizon is preparing to end all promotion for Palm's Pre Plus. This report is credited to "an inside source at Verizon" and states that this change will supposedly occur at the end of the month.

Assuming this report is true, this will have given Verizon and Palm's WebOS products a bit over two months in the spotlight of prime TV and print ads, as Verizon officially launched the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus on Janurary 25th. The Examiner article goes on to state that a combination of Verizon's strong Droid push alongside the numerous build quality issues on Sprint with the original Pre in 2009 helped seal Palm's fate.

Since the devices launched, we have seen Verizon accused of doing little to promote the devices in store. Yet since the WebOS launch the CDMA giant has taken several steps that can be viewed as either aggressively pushing Palm's products or desperately attempting to unload inventory. For starters, Verizon's "buy one, get one free" BOGO started with a "free" Pixi Plus then both WebOS devices joined nearly all of Verizon's current smartphones in an expanded version of the promotion. In addition, Verizon dumped their mail-in rebate requirement for Palm devices shortly after CEO Jon Rubinstein initiated "Project Jumpstart" in late February and asserted that the carrier had not done enough to effectively push WebOS. No confirmation is made by the article if "promotion" extends only to advertising efforts outside of stores or if Verizon is going to begin removing in-store demo units and actual phone stock as well.

Thanks to SeldomVisitor for the tip.

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