Businessweek thinks the Pre has a chance

Businessweek wrote an interesting article about the Palm Pre on August 4th.  In it they talk about some of the estimates and expectations users and the market has on sales of the new phone.

Many people have been making a comparison of the Palm Pre to the iPhone and the comparisons just don’t hold.  The iPhone has been around for years and has the advantage of hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars in marketing whether it be through ads or word of mouth.  The Pre is the new kid on the block and many people feel that it has a tremendous amount of potential.

The Pre doesn’t need to outsell the iPhone in order to be a success.  Right now it’s only available on Sprint, but it’s going to be on Bell on August 27th, as well as hitting several other carriers in the next 6 – 12 months.

While the Pre hasn’t driven a bunch of people to Sprint, I’d put my money on it helping people ditch their regular plans and paying more to get a Simply Everything plan.  Many of the customers Sprint is losing may be defecting to their Boost Mobile or Virgin Mobile services to avoid the pressure of a monthly bill and contract.  Both AT&T and Verizon added millions of subscribers by buying companies (Cingular and Alltel respectively) and both have areas in the US where they have a virtual monopoly when it comes to wireless service.  If Sprint can keep afloat until more phones come aboard the Pre will have done it’s job.

You can read more at Businessweek.com.