Palm Pre has trouble going metric. WTF?

No, the Palm Pre can do the conversion from gallons to decaliters just fine, it is the conversion from CDMA to GSM that seems to be giving the company fits. Back at CES, I was given a private word that the two devices would ship simultaneously and take the world by storm. But according to this announcement (“in time for the holidays”) by Palm, the two are not even close. My math says Palm will release the Pre by December 11th.

Why December 11? Easy. Following the roadmap and marketing effort Palm laid out in the states, the company seeks to feed on iPhone customers whose contract is up. The iPhone 3G, the real player in the UK where everything is 3G, launch day contracts are up on December 11th, 18 months after the original launch day of July 11. Palm will plead its case to UK mobilists (just coined a new word and I am off to go hashtag it on Twitter) who might be looking for something a little different.