Wal-Mart To Carry Palm PreWal-Mart To Carry Palm Pre

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Palm Pre smartphone

Wal-Mart is making a strong push to revamp its electronics departments in order to lure customers from rivals such as Best Buy and Amazon.com, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The retailer also hopes to capture consumers from the recently closed Circuit City, which shuttered more than 700 stores in March. Deutsche Bank estimated Circuit City's closing left more than $11 billion in annual revenue that Wal-Mart is trying to capitalize on.

Part of Wal-Mart's strategy is to offer high-end smartphones, and executives said the company will offer the highly awaited Palm Pre. The handset, which was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, has a capacitive touch screen, slide-out keyboard, Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, and Bluetooth. The release date and price are still unknown, but Palm said it would be launched in the first half of 2009.

One of the most appealing features of the Pre is its new operating system, which is called webOS. The OS was built from the ground up with Internet connectivity in mind, and it has a finger-friendly user interface that can run multiple applications at once. Palm is planning to use webOS on a variety of devices, but it needs the Pre to be a hit in order to gain market share from the likes of Apple and Research In Motion.

With more than 2,000 stores in the United States, Wal-Mart can be a critical commercial channel for handset manufacturers. The retailer also can offer smartphones at lower prices than competitors because of its size, and it offered the T-Mobile G1 for $30 less than it was being sold online or at T-Mobile stores. The company also offers Apple's iPhone 3G, but it only offers a $2 discount.

Wal-Mart also will be looking to bring in more high-definition televisions, Blu-ray disks, and netbooks to lure in more customers.

Most companies are just starting the hard work of mobilizing workforces by bringing the software they use to smartphones. information looked at who's doing it, how they're making it happen, and the tough trade-offs they face. The report can be downloaded here (registration required).