Mobile Info Planet

The Palm Pre was released over 6 months ago now, yet Palm still doesn't sell unlocked Pres on their website. Instead, their only goal seem to be to hook up and sell their phones with only one carrier, and ignore the rest of the potential market (read: "the rest of the planet").

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Now I can understand why, in any given country, a carrier (and Palm) might be concerned about offering their phones only through one channel. But the Pre Plus will be launched by Verizon in the US: what possible reason does Palm have for not selling the Pre Plus (and the Pre) in Europe, unlocked and unsubsidized? Why would Verizon care about Palm selling the Pre Plus in Europe? And even if Verizon did care for some strange reason and demanded that Palm do not sell the Pre Plus anywhere in the world (no matter how little sense that would make), does Palm have so little clout regarding this matter that they need to comply with such a demand in order to sell their phones to a US carrier? Is Palm really in a position where they can afford to ignore that enormous untapped market?

I honestly don't get it. I can only reach one of two conclusions: either Palm really is so insignificant that the large US carriers can bully them around and put those kind of restrictions on Palm, even if they don't make any sense, or the people in charge at Palm are so narrow minded (incompetent?) that they don't see any market for unlocked phones (at very least in Europe where many phones are sold unlocked and unsubsidized).

I'm not sure which of the two it is, if any, but if anyone can shed some light on this or simply has any other theories I would like to hear them.