Palm Launches Centro Smartphone in Colombia with Comcel and Movistar

After recently announcing the sale of its one-millionth Palm(R) Centro(TM) in the United States, Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) today introduced its popular smartphone in Colombia through Comcel and Movistar.

With a fun, new compact design, Centro is Palm’s smallest and lightest smartphone. Centro helps users manage email and text messaging, keep track of their schedules, stay up-to-date on the latest news, capture and share pictures, and get directions on Google(TM) Maps — all in one small, fun compact phone. Its full keyboard also makes it easy to quickly type text messages and emails with complete thoughts and ideas. Centro has everything a person needs to stay organized and connected with everyone who is important to them, whether it’s family, friends or co-workers, and it’s particularly attractive to users who are migrating to their first smartphone.

Easy to Use and Highly Customizable

Running on Palm OS(R), Centro offers Palm’s unrivaled ease of use and organizer functions, making it the perfect solution for users who are looking for a smart but compact mobile phone to help them manage increasingly busy lives, whether it’s juggling business meetings or keeping track of social engagements. Centro is also highly customizable with thousands of applications available to help users with everything from maintaining a healthy eating plan to keeping track of golf handicaps or personal expenses.

Additional Centro Features and Benefits

– Superior Phone – Centro’s touch screen and full keyboard, combined with the simplicity of Palm OS, make it easy to use, with key features such as one-touch speakerphone, conference calling, ignore a call with text messaging and Bluetooth(R) connectivity.

– Easy Messaging – Centro’s full keyboard makes typing complete messages fast and easy when sending text, pictures, audio and video clips. Plus, Centro keeps all conversations in a chat-style view, just like Instant Messaging, so users can see the entire conversation unfold.

– Personal and Work Email – New users to the smartphone world now have an easy mobile email solution. Personal email, such as Gmail and Yahoo!, is simple to access right out of the box. And, if users have to check their work email, Microsoft Direct Push Technology gives users access to their corporate email, as well as the ability to automatically update work calendars and accept or decline meeting invites, all on the go.

– Web Browsing – Fast and easy web access on EDGE networks. The full keyboard and touch screen provide quick access to online information.

– Multimedia – Pocket Tunes on Centro lets users manage music, audio books and videos easily.Users can also shoot pictures or videos with the built-in digital camera and share them with friends.

Palm Launches New Slim, Sleek Treo Smartphone on Rogers Wireless Network in Canada

For people who are ready to move up to a full-featured mobile phone that includes everything needed to stay organized, Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) has announced the availability of the Palm(R) Treo(TM) 680 smartphone, a GSM/GPRS/EDGE quad-band world phone, on Rogers Wireless, Canada’s largest integrated wireless voice and data network.

Palm Treo 680

Customers will find the Treo 680 smartphone easy to use, slim and compact, yet packed full of features beyond its stellar phone capability, such as email, web browsing, messaging, multimedia, calendar, contacts and more. Palm believes this product will appeal to price-sensitive feature-phone owners who want a more capable mobile-computing device.

“The Treo 680 is the smartphone for everyone. It’s small, sleek, fast and is available in four fun colors on the Palm Canada online store,” said Michael Moskowitz, vice president, Americas International, Palm, Inc. “It’s a great phone design for messaging and email, and provides users easy and fast access to the Internet and to their favorite music and pictures. The Treo 680 makes it easy for people to balance their business and personal lives while on the go.”

“As Canada’s leading wireless carrier, operating on Canada’s only GSM network, we are proud to offer our customers leading-edge mobile devices like the Palm Treo 680. Email availability on a stylish, thin form factor will make the Treo 680 particularly appealing to small and medium-size businesses by enabling them to save time by having access to outstanding mobile innovation and email connectivity,” said John Boynton, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Rogers Wireless.

With the introduction of the Palm OS(R) based Treo 680 smartphone, Palm is targeting new users in the rapidly growing smartphone and feature-phone markets. Market research firm In-Stat, estimates that 25 per cent of all wireless handsets worldwide will be smartphones by 2011. Research conducted by Palm suggests a substantial population of feature-phone users have not purchased smartphones, fearing they were too expensive and too difficult to use. The Treo 680 will offer an affordable, simple and fun way to get started and stay connected.

Cingular Wireless Offers New-Look, $199 Palm Treo 680

New Smart Device Offers Cingular Consumer and Business Customers a Slim and Sleek Device Packed Full of Functionality

Cingular Wireless and Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) today introduced the new Palm(R) Treo(TM) 680 smart device, whose brand-new look, broad range of features and economical price will appeal to both consumers and business customers — just in time for the holidays. The Treo 680 quad-band world phone on the Palm OS(R) platform — which is available beginning Friday, Nov. 24, for as low as $199.99 — boasts Palm’s hallmark ease of use to keep any user productive, all with a slim and compact feel.

Cingular business and consumer customers will be able to better balance their personal and business lives, as the all-in-one Treo 680 seamlessly combines a compact, full-featured mobile phone with so much more, all at a competitive price. Users can do even more with their phone, from accessing email and editing documents at the airport to organizing photos and music while waiting for a friend at the coffee shop.

Market research firm In-Stat estimates that 25 percent of all wireless handsets worldwide will be PDAs and smartphones by 2011, which makes the Treo 680 the ideal phone both for feature-phone upgraders and new users.

The Palm Treo 680 is easy to use and affordable because of the multiple innovations it encompasses:

– A new internal antenna enables a sleeker design;

– An improved phone application on the Treo 680 smart device allows users to dial faster;

– The ability to ignore calls with a quick text message lets users tell a caller “I’m in a meeting” or “Can’t talk now”;

– The large, bright color screen is perfect for viewing email, documents or spreadsheets via DataViz Documents To Go(R), and even photos and movies;

– The highly regarded built-in QWERTY keyboard has improved buttons, making it even easier to type emails or SMS messages;

– The messaging application displays text-messaging conversations as “threaded chats,” similar to IM, so users can see their entire conversation with a particular person; and

– The Treo 680 smart device also can be used as an MP3 player and has an integrated digital camera, camcorder and video player, with simpler organization for photos and photo slideshows.

“The Palm Treo 680 will open up the popular Palm experience to a much wider audience of Cingular customers,” said Jeff Bradley, vice president, business data services, for Cingular Wireless. “This next-generation Treo comes with all of the outstanding business features that Palm devotees have come to expect plus rich entertainment capabilities, and all at a very attractive price that will appeal both to businesses and individual users.”

The Palm Treo 680 operates on Cingular’s nationwide EDGE network, the largest national high-speed wireless data network in the United States with availability in more than 13,000 cities and towns, and along some 40,000 miles of major highways. Treo 680 users also can take their device with them abroad to make calls on six continents and over 190 countries, with wireless data roaming in more than 115 countries.

EDGE’s widespread coverage makes the Treo 680 an ideal platform for business customers and consumers who want an easy-to-use way to check their email, send SMS, browse the Web and more.

“Palm remains focused on introducing Treo smartphones that are user-friendly and affordable for any audience — from single users to wide-scale business deployments,” said Tara Griffin, Palm vice president and general manager. “The Treo 680 from Cingular Wireless is an excellent proof point. We have a tremendous opportunity to serve customers the world over by helping them stay more connected to important people and information, whether it’s through contacts and calendar, email, messaging, documents, web browsing, photos or music. This mobile phone enhances work and leisure time.”

Business Customer-focused Solution

While Palm’s ease of use and affordability are beneficial for new or upgrading consumers, business users also can take advantage of the Treo 680 smart device, because of the following:

– Flexibility: The all-in-one Treo 680 smart device is ideal for deployment across any business, small or large, and offers the security and flexibility needed by IT departments for easy integration;

– High return on investment: Because of its attractive price and ease of use, the Treo 680 brings increased mobile productivity to help businesses realize a quick return on investment, all in a budget-friendly smart device;

– Staying productive: Phone, web, add-on business applications and more help customers stay in touch and on top of their work; and

– Staying connected: Customers can access such Cingular-enabled wireless email solutions as Cingular Xpress Mail, Microsoft Exchange Active Sync, and Good(TM) Mobile Messaging from Good Technology, as well as POP3 and IMAP accounts.

“The Palm Treo 680 smartphone is a natural and affordable choice for our business,” said Robert DeLille, chief executive officer of Creative Office Environments. “With more on-device memory and the availability of intuitive applications, such as Google Maps for Mobile, on the Cingular Wireless network, our workforce can be more productive and stay in touch with customers and colleagues.”

Pricing and Availability

The Treo 680 is available beginning Friday, Nov. 24, for as low as $199.99 to consumers and businesses nationwide at Cingular Wireless retail stores, www.cingular.com, select national retailers, through Cingular’s B2B sales organization and at http://www.palm.com/treo680. A variety of monthly data plans are available, including an unlimited Cingular PDA Connect plan for $44.99 per month.

For a limited time, the Treo 680 will come with a music bundle from Yahoo!, which includes a 30-day free trial to its Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go service and Yahoo! Music For Mobile. Users have the ability to access the Yahoo! Music Unlimited music library from the phone and to send tracks remotely to a PC.

The Palm Treo 680 from Cingular Wireless also supports a wide variety of third-party, Cingular Wireless certified applications, such as the TeleNav GPS Navigator(TM) solution. With TeleNav GPS Navigator, Treo 680 users now can get turn-by-turn voice and on-screen GPS directions directly on their device for use when driving or walking.