AT&T Expects to Sell the Palm Pre

I think "context" needs to be wrapped around his single sentence comment, no?

Giggle.

Are people naive enough to think Apple has no leverage with AT&T?

Unless, Palm has a more compelling Pre 2 on the horizon that Sprint are eager to get their hands on. So while everyone else is scrambling to get the 8GB, no expansion card, no video recordin' Pre 1.0, Sprint will be trotting out a Pre 2 w/ 16GB and other improvements in time for Christmas....look how Palm has traditionally introduced their latest & greatest (755p, Centro) on Sprint then had it trickle down to other carriers later on.
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->?

bcogis wrote:
I think it's a great tact for AT&T to say they too will carry the Pre. That way if the phone is a hit, AT&T customers will wait for the Pre instead of jumping ship. I wonder how happy they'll be when they find out AT&T won't be carrying the Pre?

Are people naive enough to think Apple has no leverage with AT&T?

Apple's exclusive deal with AT&T expires next year, and what are the chances that Apple won't broaden the distribution of the iPhone (especially with the lackluster stories going around about the iPhone's performance on AT&T's network)? Once the Apple goes to other networks, what leverage will Apple have left? That's what makes the story plausible.

I have to say, though, that when I saw what Stephenson actually said about it, I'm somewhat surprised it's been interpretted the way it has been. Here's the quote that I found:

"Would I like to see that on our network some day? Of course I would," Stephenson said of the Pre. "We obviously talk to all the handset manufacturers. We want a broad selection of devices in the lineup. That's important."

That sounds a lot less like an imminent plan for a deal than it does a "Well, yeah, eventually..." kind of statement.