An interesting new article has just been posted by D! All Things Digital’s John Paczkowski discussing the ever-rampant rumor that Palm may be acquired within the next year or two. Citing Deutsche Bank analyst (and periodic Palm prognosticator) Jonathan Goldberg, Paczkowski’s article is interesting not because of the hypothetical Palm acquisition speculation but rather because of a brief mention regarding how many webOS “Plus” units are in the Verizon channels.
Previous reports claimed that Verizon had purchased a 50/50 mixture of Pre Plus and Pixi Plus units for a total of 400,000 devices. I was told last week by a Verizon support rep who had just finished training on webOS that they had “closer to a half-million” due to a greater-than-anticipated Pre demand. If the 600,000 unit report is correct, than Verizon could be planning on giving WebOS a greater push than originally anticipated, especially given that two new Verizon Pre Plus Valentine-themed ads that have been plastered all over primetime television lately (here and here). Additionally, Verizon is still running their “buy one webOS phone, get a free Pixi” promotion.
