Sprint CEO Dan Hesse predicts that the Palm Pre may experience a shortage of supply and may not be able to meet initial demand on June 6th, the day of its launch. Hesse spoke at an investors conference, where he explained that the relative shortage of Pre advertising was basically for managing consumer expectations. An unnamed source at Sprint retail partner gave away some information, revealing the availability of the Pre at the launch to be less than 30,000 units.
The Pre is going to be available at places other than Sprint stores, including Radio Shack, Best Buy and select Wal-mart stores. So right now there is ambiguity regarding the 30,000 figure and whether it is particularly for Sprint stores or whether it refers to the total number of handsets available. The latter will certainly disappoint the would-be buyers though.
‘Sprint’s Pre launch’ and ‘trouble’ seem to go hand in hand. In May there was some controversy brewing when Collins Steward analyst, Ashok Kumar suggested that the hardware and software issues had resulted in reduced Pre production. There is a new iPhone that may soon present itself at Apple’s WWDC just a few days after the Pre is released and that spells danger for the Pre. Looks like, the next-gen iPhone that is rumored to hit the market on July 17th surely poses a tough competition to the Pre now.