JoostTeam

Palm hosted an impressive debut of the Pre at CES. But remember that Palm’s developer network has been largely dormant for three to four years; not immediately embracing its reinvigorated efforts is shortsighted and will prove costly. If you can afford to spend $199 on a phone in this economy, would you purchase a phone that’s been in the marketplace for two years, has sold more units than the Motorola (MOT) Razr, and is supported by tens of thousands of available applications, or would you purchase an unproven phone from a company teetering on the brink of extinction, or at least irrelevance?

And at the outset, the company made an attempt to court a community of software developers who would be at the forefront of creating all manner of rich applications that will make the Pre both useful and fun to a range of buyers. The chain of events caused me to step back and look at Palm in a new light, but my concerns about the success of the Pre relate to far more than the company’s treatment of developers.

On June 6, Palm (PALM) will release the Pre, a smartphone many hope will fuel a resurgence of a company long since fallen from grace.

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