Last week, Elevation Partners investor Roger McNamee made some interesting statements about how he believes early adopters of the iPhone will jump ship and replace their Apple hardware with the Palm Pre. Palm thought his statements went a little bit too far, and submitted a document to the SEC "withdrawing" them.This is too rich. As if McNamee's statements weren't somewhat inflammatory to begin with, Palm is calling even more attention to them. Here's what he said last week:

• "June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later. Think about it -- if you bought the first iPhone, you bought it because you wanted the coolest product on the market. Your two-year contract has just expired. Look around. Tell me what they're going to buy."
• "The Pre going to be a million times -- well, not a million times -- several times faster than the iPhone."
• "The Pre is going to run rings around [Apple] on the Web."

McNamee is implying that iPhone users will want the Palm Pre and nothing else. He's forgetting that there could be a significant number of first-generation iPhone adopters who already moved on to the 3G iPhone. Those users will still be under contract come June 29, 2009. Second, McNamee isn't considering the possibility that Apple may release yet another version of the iPhone come the summer. Palm decided it best to take those statements off the public record (after all, investors may take McNamee seriously).

Palm issued several of its own statements, including:

• "The statement in the second paragraph of the article that 'not one' person who bought an Apple Inc. iPhone on the first shipment date 'will still be using an iPhone a month' after the two-year anniversary of that day is an exaggerated prediction of consumer behavior pattern and is withdrawn."
• "With respect to the statements in the tenth paragraph of the transcript that the Palm Pre is 'going to be a million times -- well, not a million times -- several times faster' than Apple Inc.'s iPhone products and is 'going to run rings around them on the Web,' the Palm Pre is still under development and it is premature to state the speed at which the device accesses the Web or the relative speed of the Palm Pre compared to the smartphone products of competitors."

So there you have it. I totally understand McNamee's enthusiasm, which isn't something he should be denied. But he does need to understand that he can't make statements that could be misconstrued as factual when there are so many unknowns about the Pre's performance right now.