I must say though that Sprint was always good to me. Their customer service was always excellent, and they always worked hard to keep me happy EXCEPT in the issue of the dead zones, which is why ultimately I moved on. Loyalty is one thing, but losing business because of dropped calls is another.

I also mention my 10 year stint with Sprint because the vast majority of that stint was spent in hardware hell. Sprint was always known to have no “cool” phones for a very very long time. Only in the past couple of years has this changed. But the lack of a SIM card is a large negative IMO. On ATT I can use my bulky iphone during the business day, and switch to something more svelte for the nightlife.

Also Sprint what’s up with charging for call forwarding? With the lack of SIM card I had to use my 2nd line, but got charged for call forwarding to it.

Qwest wants me to leave Sprint and go to Verizon because they left Sprint for Verizon (I have no idea why, do you).

I have been fine with Sprint/Qwest so far and like the new features that an Instinct or Pre would give me on Sprint at a lower cost than Verizon but I am about out of patience with Sprint and Pre.

If Verizon came up with a good offer and a good phone I might just sign up if I don’t get word soon on how long I have to wait for Sprint and Pre to get it together.

Hurry it up guys or you’re gonna lose us.

The comment about Palm being scared stiff was just made to drive traffic and comments to the site and it worked well.

I’ll just add to the other statements about the silly title of the blog – which apparently is getting the desired affect of causing people to come here.

It’s a cheap shot – and casts a shadow over the rest of your statements. It doesn’t matter that you make good points about Sprint – as you can see, most people are more irritated that you opened with a statement based completely on conjecture, but stating it like you knew something you don’t. Honestly, from reading the about page (I’ve never heard of you) I’m sorta of surprised you’d resort to something like this – you seem to have enough experience to know the comments were coming. Which, of course, futher’s my initial reaction that it was deliberate – which is a good reason to never bother with your blog again.

I seriously doubt coming into this Palm thought ‘Gee, Sprint is doing SO well let’s go with them’. They had their reason, be it from previous relationships or great deal from Sprint or perhaps some strategy you haven’t thought of.

Bottom line is I don’t think Palm is being taken by surprise.

It’s moot anyway. You talk like it’s an iPhone sort of deal, which it isn’t. I absolutely will not do business with AT&T – thus Apple will NEVER have me as an iPhone customer no matter how awesome people think it is. Apples loss as I am not the only one. Sprint haters can simply wait til the end of the year – most of them are going to already be tied up in contracts anyway.

For the record, I have been with Sprint over 9 years, mostly at this point due to my corporate discount, and I’ve been using Palm PDAs/Palm phones since they came out. I should also say neither Verizon nor T-Mobile have particularly shown me any reason to jump ship.

Palm may not actually be all that scared. A year of exclusivity with Sprint may actually do Palm some good and I can offer some evidence as to why.

First, it’s only a year. It’s not a five year exclusivity agreement like Apple has with AT&T. Apple has been able to count on people abandoning their carriers to join up with AT&T because AT&T has the marketing bucks and customer service chops to make the switch worthwhile for most people. Sprint, however, knows they can’t generate the same kind of draw and they’re counting on the majority of the Palm Pre sales to come from their current customer base. The evidence for this? Their newly launched Customer Loyalty program for high-paying customers. It’s pretty clear that Sprint’s tactic is to get the Pre into the hands of current customers. Is the fact that most people aren’t willing to switch to Sprint for the Palm Pre enough to make Palm scared stiff? Unlikely. We know from Palm’s presentation at CES that the Pre is only the first of a family of new devices that will be built on the WebOS and there’s a very good chance that those other devices will NOT have an exclusivity deal with Sprint.

Also, the Pre may be highly anticipated and everything, but Palm does not want to repeat the mistake Motorola made with the Razor a few years back, which is to devalue the product through market saturation. There have been reports lately in tech news about slowing mobile phone sales that aren’t necessarily due to the slowing economy (though I’m sure the economy is a factor). In reality, the slowdown is because the mobile phone market is so absolutely saturated. In fact, in Europe, there are more mobile phones than there are people. This type of saturation doesn’t negatively affect carriers since it only benefits them when everyone owns a mobile phone. It does, however, create a problem for companies like Palm and RIM and even Apple: The only way they can sell more devices in a saturated market is for you to ditch your current device and upgrade to theirs.

So why does this information translate into Palm not being “scared stiff”? Because they’ve spun Apple’s exclusivity gimmick in such a way that it encourages in-carrier upgrades to their device rather than cross-carrier migration. It will more-than-likely work to Palm’s benefit since high-anticipation, initial scarcity, customers perceiving value, and a short-lived exclusivity agreement with a single carrier all translates into more consistent sales over a longer period of time, rather than a short and massive burst of sales and then a huge decline. And longer more consistent sales of WebOS devices means better adoption (and then subsequent saturation) within the market.

Think about it. If you’re with Verizon or AT&T and you hear that it’s only a year before you can get your hands on the Pre (or, in all likelyhood, even sooner before another WebOS device becomes available on your network), you look at the year-long exclusivity agreement and shrug your shoulders and say to yourself, “Meh. I can wait.”

That’s even more true during a time when everyone is suffering financially; rather than deal with disconnect fees and pro-rated fees and new customer fees and setup fees and the hassle of porting your phone number to a new carrier, wouldn’t you rather just be rewarded for your loyalty to your carrier by being given a cheap and simple way to upgrade to a newer, more exciting device? And all in exchange for a longer term agreement with your carrier? Sure you would. Sprint gets that. In fact, retaining customers has been Dan Hesse’s outspoken priority since he came on board with Sprint. Obviously getting new customers is nice, but not if you’re hemorrhaging the old ones, which is something ALL the carriers are going to start worrying about if times get so tough that customers start looking for ways to cut their personal budgets and begin eliminating their mobile phones.

Again, just to recap: Palm wants consistent sales over a longer period of time and the only way to achieve that in an already saturated market is to create scarcity and high levels of anticipation. Palm does NOT want to massively introduce a new mobile platform and an innovative new device to an already saturated market and risk “flash” saturation. And Sprint happens to be in enough trouble that they could really benefit from some customer loyalty and longer agreements with their customers. I honestly don’t think Palm is “scared stiff”. I think, for Palm anyways, everything’s going according to plan.