PriceSCAN Blog

Of course, much of Palm's recent success moving Treos took place before the settlement, when there was serious fear out there that RIM's pocket-sized heralds of e-mail joy might be silenced by a judge's gavel. With that risk eliminated, will the demand for Treos slack off, or did all that legal wrangling open a window of opportunity through which Palm successfully showed consumers the benefits of its product? Palm has made some smart moves, offering free 45-day trials of the Treo with Good Technology's wireless e-mail service. Some customers, notably potential corporate buyers, may have taken a second (or maybe first) look at Palm's SmartPhone. And the Windows version of the Treo works with RIM's BlackBerry Connect software, providing the kind of compatibility that might help break the "lock in" effect of the BlackBerry's wide acceptance. Some may still feel that the messenger cum phone combo is kind of a brick, but it does eliminate the need to carry an extra gadget around. Whether all this is enough to get users to abandon the little gizmo that for so long has lovingly screamed for its missives to be read (see Palm Embraces Windows For Treo, But Still Lacks Blackberry's "In Your Fact" Factor) remains to be seen.