Verizon Passes On The Palm Pre

In a rather surprising move considering Verizon's lack of compelling handsets, the nation's biggest wireless carrier has decided it's going to pass on the Palm Pre , if reports are to be believed. This is a serious blow to Palm's aspirations, and their stock took a 5% hit as if to rubber-stamp it. Although the team here is divided over Palm's new efforts (and advertising strategy ), I think we were all secretly rooting for Palm just a bit. After all, WebOS is impressive and the Pre and Pixi are solid little devices — but Verizon doesn't think so, or at least not anymore . Nobody can deny that sales have been underwhelming — half a million is about where I'd place them, which is no way to launch a giant-killer. That's Verizon's first complaint, and you can't really blame them. Okay, strike one. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco