Palm plans on intentionally short selling the new Palm Pre
 

According to Bloomberg, Palm plans to INTENTIONALLY short sell this product to see if they can imitate the success of the Wii



Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the Palm Pre might be in short supply when it's made available later this year.

Citing estimates by six market analysts, Bloomberg says the Pre will "debut with about 375,000 units in stock." According to the report, that relatively small number (Apple sold 1 million iPhone 3G units in the first three days of availability last year) might have little to do with Palm's output capacity and quite a bit to do with its desire to live up to the Pre's hype.

"It's important to have a success like selling out," Hugues de La Vergne, a Gartner analyst, told Bloomberg. "The Pre has to live up to the hype or else they'll lose their momentum to rival products coming out soon after."

Neither Palm nor Sprint has confirmed plans to use a stock shortage to sell more Pre units. And don't look for either company to confirm such a claim.

But what if this really is the company's plan? Wouldn't that annoy you?

Though companies won't admit it, stock shortages are used often to build hype for a product. Claims of intentionally shorting supply have been a constant nuisance for Nintendo as it battles to keep the Wii on store shelves.

Intentional stock shortages might seem like a poor financial move for a company, since it's essentially leaving revenue on the table as consumers search for products and can't find them. But popular opinion contends that when products are sold out, opportunities for higher revenue are greater. Those who own the product will boast. News organizations will constantly discuss stock shortages. And those who don't have the device will be talking about the sellout with others. All the while, more people will become aware of the product and want to buy it.


http://news.cnet.com/manipulating-th...is-just-wrong/


it's one thing to do it's it's another to ACTUALLY tell people that you are doing it.

Release date and price are set.

$199 with 2 yr agreement and available June 6th

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/..._N19402184.htm

WOW.... I do not know how I feel about this. Being a big electronic fanatic, intentionally letting the consumers know about your marketing promotion kind of defeats the luxury of having the phone.

and not to mention they are purposefully not running ads on the phone...

Altho they showed a few this past season on 24.

Sprint and Palm needs all the help that they can get...it's a shame they are shooting themselves in the foot.

I wonder how many more years it will be before T mobile and Sprint cry uncle and get swallowed into Verizon or AT&T

I don't get why this is news. This is routine when it comes to cell phones and other electronics. They always run out. It is a great way to drive demand. It works. That said, Palm and Sprint aren't the ones talking about this as a "strategy"...analysts are. Big difference. Sprint's CEO has stated that they won't have an unending supply of the phone to begin with, saying that they're trying to manage demand and expectations by not advertising. That's the smart, and right, thing to do. If they wanted to be really obnoxious, they could advertise the crap out of the phone, drive high demand, then disappoint people who show up to get a phone and find out that the store is out.

For what it's worth, I've had Sprint for 8 years and have never had any issues. I get coverage everywhere, never get dropped calls, and Sprint's plans are a bargain compared to the competition. People always complain about the phone customer service, but I never have had to even deal with them until a couple months ago when I upgraded my phone to a Blackberry. At first they wanted to charge me an arm and a leg for the phone, but I was able to talk them into giving me a great deal eventually.

I agree...but more of a slant to I don't get why Sprint felt a need to ADVERTISE that they were going to be short.

Hopefully forever. I have AT&T and kept them because their plan was cheaper, but they pretty much follow sprint nextel's footsteps's in both technology and service.

Plus, it will eventually be all one company again, technology will stagnate, customer service (both consumer and comericail) will suffer and your Uncle will break up your Ma's house. Then a bunch of advances will come. Then it will repeat.