Verizon: Don't Leave Us Out! We're Going To Sell The Palm Pre, Too!

This must be executive let-the-cat-out-of-the-bag week. This time it was Verizon's Lowell McAdam who let flap that he expects the company to offer not only the Palm Pre, but also the BlackBerry Storm 2 within the next six months. Bam!"Over the next six months or so you will see devices like Palm Pre and a second generation Storm," said McAdam during a Web cast.

This tells us right away that Sprint's deal to sell the Palm Pre exclusively runs out in, well, about six months. That sounds about right. Sprint would have pushed hard for at least six (if not 12) months of exclusivity for the Palm Pre.

Personally, I don't think Palm can afford to have such a device for sale via only one network for too ling. It needs as many people buying the Pre as possible. That means it needs to be available from more than just Sprint. It shouldn't be too much of a surprise, then, that both Verizon's McAdam and AT&T's Stephenson both admitted that they'll be selling the phone eventually.

I am also glad that McAdam confirmed the existence of the BlackBerry Storm 2, which we saw on video earlier this week. He didn't go into too many details about either device, but "the next six months" is encouraging. That puts the availability of both phones just before the 2009 holiday shopping season. I'd say they'll be on store shelves before Black Friday or very close to it.