The agony of choice
As predicted on HEXUS.lifestyle last week, Telefónica, the owner of O2 in the UK and Movistar in Spain has announced an exclusive agreement to sell the Palm Pre.
The Pre was first announced back at CES and is significant not just because it represents the last throw of the dice for Palm, which made its name in the PDA market originally, but it sports a speedy processor based on ARM's latest Cortex A8 design and Palm's only, specially designed operating system called webOS and a some UC technology called Palm Synergy.
This is an interesting move for O2 as the Palm Pre is the latest smartphone to have ‘iPhone-killer' potential attributed to it, and we all know who has the exclusive deal for the iPhone in the UK.
"We are fast becoming the home of the smartphone with the addition of the hotly anticipated Palm Pre to our already extensive portfolio," said Matthew Key, chairman and CEO of Telefónica Europe. "Our customers will be the first outside of North America to experience one of the most successful mobile devices of the year."
O2's press release said nothing about pricing and availability and Palm's said only that it will be available "in time for the holidays. Both encouraged people to sign up for updates here.