Vodafone plays down Palm Pre exclusive rumours

Ah, here we go again. It doesn't seem two minutes since we were talking about which network would snare the UK iPhone (endless hours of speculative fun, that one) and now it's starting all over again, with the Palm Pre.

Current favourite among rumour merchants is Vodafone. Citing, "various leaks from Vodafone officials", Mobile Top Soft says the Pre: "will head to the UK via Vodafone. And that’s possibly going to be an exclusive deal which will consolidate Vodafone’s position in the UK."

We're not too sure that Vodafone's UK position is in need of that much consolidating but Mobile Top Soft does go on to say: "The negotiation between Vodafone and Palm is still at the beginning," so maybe those "officials" are jumping the gun a touch.

Vodafone, for its part, has not so much quashed the rumours as dodged them. A spokesman told us it had "no plans" for the Palm Pre, "at the moment", which doesn't exactly strike us as a flat out denial - although it doesn't give away too many hints either.

For what it's worth, a Vodafone exclusive wouldn't be too much of a surprise to us. Vodafone and Palm already have a history of co-branded Vodafone handset versions, such as the Treo 500v. And, of course, Vodafone would be all too keen to get one over O2, which holds the coveted iPhone exclusive.

Equally, though, we have our doubts. By all accounts, Vodafone passed up the iPhone because the deal from Apple wasn't good enough - and the same could happen in negotiations with Palm. Then there's the fact that, in the States, Sprint has the exclusive for the Palm Pre, rather than Vodafone's effective US arm, Verizon Wireless, with which it shares the BlackBerry Bold rights. Now, who wants to start a T-Mobile Palm Pre rumou?

[ MobileTopSoft.com]