If you read only yesterday's "exclusive" story on The Street.com website, based on anonymous sources, you know what happened -- Verizon has "snubbed" Palm, by deciding not to offer the Palm Pre smartphone in January 2010 as it had previously announced.
And that's how most everyone else in the news business is reporting what The Street.com "reported."
The only problem with this clarity is that, as the story itself notes, a Palm statement points out that the company never at any point said the Pre was going to be offered on the Verizon network.
And the only source I could find for the claim that Verizon would sell the Palm smartphone was a Reuters story, from a May 28, that apparently failed to fully quote Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. Here's what Reuters wrote back then: "Over the next six months or so you will see devices like Palm Pre and a second generation Storm," on the Verizon Wireless network, McAdam said. "You can expect to see us launch a steady stream of new devices from multiple vendors."
The vast majority of the resulting Internet reference to Verizon's alleged Palm plan further condensed or summarized or distilled that partial quote, and drew from it conclusion that were then cited in still more blog posts, comments, and online punditry. Meanwhile, in a kind of hall-of-mirrors effect, the original words faded into obscurity.
Here's how Street.com references it in its "exclusive" story: "If the snub is true, the move would also be a reversal of Verizon's position in May, when wireless chief Lowell McAdam told investors the Pre was coming in six months."
In fact, McAdam did not tell them that. Barron's Tiernan Ray was one of the few who confessed to being uncertain about what McAdam actually meant: "McAdam’s comments are being taken to mean the Pre itself will be offered by Verizon, but what McAdam said was actually slightly different:
Now we aren’t typically the carrier that comes out and announces what we are going to be selling 12 months from now. Other carriers do that, and the media loves to speculate on what we are bringing to market. But what I will tell you is that over the next six months or so you will see devices like the Palm Pre and the Cousin on our network from Palm.
Based on that alone, I'd say McAdam has more insight into the media, than the media has into Verizon.
In my limited search, I found dozens of references to McAdam "telling" "or "announcing" that Verizon will offer the Pre in six months, all drawing from the Reuters story, but only Ray offered the full quote from a transcript of McAdam's remarks. ['Cousin' may have been a reference to the second webOS-based Palm smartphone, the recently announced Palm Pixi.]
It seems much more likely that what McAdam meant was similar to what AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson clearly meant, speaking at about the same time and quoted in Fierce Wireless: "Would I like to see Palm Pre on our network? Of course." Stephenson said, speaking at the D: All Things Digital conference hosted by The Wall Street Journal. "We want a broad selection of devices." Fierce Wireless drew on the same Reuters story for the same conclusion: McAdam said Verizon would be offering the Palm Pre.
"If the snub is true" is a neat touch in today's Street.com exclusive on the latest development in this Internet saga. Up to this point, there's been no indication, not even a wink and a nudge, that one should wonder about story's veracity. The story cites "people close to the discussions" between Palm and Verizon. Logically, that has to mean at least two individuals. But how close is "close?" Participants? Listeners? People back in the corporate offices getting a forwarded email, or a phone call from someone "closer?" Did they even work with for Verizon or Palm? Maybe they were Wall Street analysts talking to corporate sources who were "close" or guards at the outside doors or drivers or waiters bringing coffee?
The Street.com has not a single quote or a paraphrase or summary attributed to one of the "people close to the discussions." There seems to be a separate group of just plain "sources" for speculation later in the story: "Sources did say that Verizon could be more delicate about the decision and order just a small amount of Pre phones with no intention of lending much marketing support."
Which, if true, could only mean that Verizon has in fact decided NOT to snub Palm and to go ahead in offering the Pre phones, contradicting the whole premise of the story. It's also not clear why Verizon, in a fight for its life in a cut-throat mobile industry, would bother with being "delicate" toward Palm.
With the "facts" firmly established, "if true," Street.com spins out what to me seems like pure speculation: the Verizon non-decision is a "dramatic set-back" for Palm, which "desperately needs" additional U.S. carriers.
I don't have any sources close to the discussions between Verizon and Palm. But the fact that Palm Pre hasn't been as successful at the outset as the iPhone in terms of unit sales doesn't make it a failure. Verizon has more than one option with regard to the Palm: it could indeed pass on it completely; it could offer the Pre later rather than sooner; it could choose the Palm Pixi instead; it could have an exclusive deal for a yet-unidentified webOS mobile device.
Palm's recently quarter financials reported a deeper loss, but it did better than Wall Street analysts expected. So far, investors aren't bailing out: Palms share price was $11.99 shortly after the introduction of the new Pre phone in early June, rose fairly steadily to $16.58 at the start of July, and then trended down to $12.63 in mid-Augst. It's been trending upward since: Friday's closing price was $16.37, capping 7 days of heavy trading.
Cox is a senior editor at Network World.
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