Palm gave Sprint too long of an exclusive to sell the Pre and Pixi Read more:

Palm's long exclusive tie-up with a shrinking Sprint Nextel -- in the middle of its own lame comeback attempt -- meant Palm's resurgence was screwed from the beginning.
Ideally, Palm never should have used Sprint Nextel, the shrinking no. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, as its launch partner for the Pre. But we're assuming that Sprint was Palm's only choice; that no. 1 Verizon Wireless and no. 2 AT&T weren't interested in a blowout launch gala.

In that case, it never should have given Sprint such a LONG exclusive. It was fine to keep the Pre exclusive at Sprint for a few months. But then launching the Pixi on Sprint also was a huge blow.

And whatever prevented Verizon and/or AT&T from selling the Pre and Pixi last Christmas was a huge blow to Palm. Instead, Verizon put its muscle behind Google Android and the Motorola Droid. And obviously AT&T had every reason to promote its exclusive iPhone above all other smartphones.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/29/businessinsider-10-reasons-palm-failed-and-had-to-sell-to-hp-2010-4.DTL#ixzz0mSlWWR00