Palm WebOS Gets More DistributionPalm WebOS Gets More Distribution

The new mobile platform by Palm, WebOS, gets additional distribution in Spain. Telefonica will be picking the device up. It looks like Palm has ordered over 700,000 Pixies too.According to PalmInfocenter, which has done some translating from Spanish, has discovered the Palm Pre will be released on October 14 in Spain. Depending on the plan, you can expect to pay somewhere between nothing and €219. They don't, however, appear to be offering an unlocked version at any price for those of you thinking of trying that avenue out.

DigiTimes has also revealed that the maker of the Pixi, Compal Communications, has projected 700,000-800,000 units for the fourth quarter. That is just to Palm though. Palm will have to offer its own estimates as to how many will actually sell. The Pixi is the little brother of the Pre. It has a keyboard that doesn't move, a 2.63 inch screen and GPS. For now, it only has the CDMA radio. This will be launching in the US on the Sprint network. No word yet on international launches.

Speaking of sell-through, Palm's definition differs from most of the rest of the industry. Most manufacturers and carriers define a sale for reporting purposes when the customer has it in their hot little hands. Palm, on the other hand, records a sale when they ship it from their warehouse, wherever they may be. So if they sell 100,000 to Sprint this week, that gets booked as 100,000 units sold, even if they are all in Sprint stores waiting for a potential owner to come and pick them out. Anything that they expect to be activated within six months gets rung up as a sale. This means that of the 823,000 total phones "sold" in Palm's third quarter, not only do we not really know how many were the Pre which launched at the beginning of their quarter, we don't know how many have actually been purchased by an end user.

Palm fully discloses this methodology in their filings, so nothing underhanded is going on, but it does allow them to record sales faster than their competition. Given the poor performance of the 800,000 phones in a quarter compared to Apple and Windows Mobile which is cranking out millions in the same time frame, the number from Palm seems that much more insignificant.