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Canadians will have access to the Palm Pre smartphone later this year. Arriving in the second half of 2009, the Pre will be available on Canada’s Bell Mobility 3G high-speed network, Palm stated in a May 6 announcement.
“We’re excited to bring Pre to Canada with Bell Mobility,” Brodie Keast, senior vice president of marketing for Palm, said in a company statement. “We’ve seen enormous interest from mobile operators worldwide and fully expect to continue to expand distribution for Pre, putting it within reach of more and more customers.”
In the United States, the Palm Pre is scheduled to debut on Sprint’s network.
The announcement was also an opportunity to re-emphasize that the Pre is the only Palm device with the new WebOS mobile platform, which Palm describes as being so intuitive in response to user needs as to almost feel “like the Pre is thinking ahead for you.”
Analysts have commented on WebOS, calling it innovative. Tina Teng, a senior analyst with iSuppli, predicted that WebOS, in combination with the Pre’s multitouch display interface, “are likely to allow the Pre to appeal to a broad range of consumers, going far beyond the company’s core group of business-oriented customers.”
Teng pointed to the Apple iPhone as the mark Palm is aiming for with the Pre.
Adel Bazerghi, senior vice president of products for Bell Mobility, was also quoted in the statement, saying he was excited to be part of only the second carrier in the world to offer the Pre.
“With the unique user experience of the world’s first WebOS phone, running on the country’s largest 3G network, we’re confident that Canadians will embrace Pre as the phone for their lives today,” Bazerghi said in the statement.
Bell Mobility has not yet released pricing information for the Pre.
Palm will roll out the Pre in June in the United States, with some speculating that the Pre could arrive as early as June 7-one day before Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, which it’s thought could steal wind from the sails of a new iPhone announcement.