Harvey Norman gets Palm preference

Mass merchant retailer Harvey Norman has bought Palm’s entire stock of its latest edition to the Treo family - Palm Treo 680 smartphone.

Harvey will make the products available to end-user during the mad Christmas rush. Other retailers, such as Dick Smith, Harris Technology, OfficeWorks, Myer and other specialist resellers will stock the Treo 680 from mid-January 2007.

Geoff Anson, country manager at Palm Australasia said the local office had a limited inventory of 680s, due to global release date of the product being brought forward for Christmas.

“We were only allocated a certain number of products and we went around to retailers and asked them who wanted the product lock, stock and barrel,” he said.

Anson denies preferential treatment was given to Harvey Norman. He said the mass merchant retailer just happened to “put its hand up first and bought the whole lot.”

The Treo 680 is a GSM/GPRS/EDGE quad-band phone and features beyond capabilities, such as email, web browsing, messaging, multimedia, calendar and contacts. It will be sold in Harvey Norman stores across Australia for about $799.

Anson said the product is also available from the Palm website, http://http://www.palm.com/au. Everyone from corporate users to ordinary consumers will be able to apply for a two week trial of the product.

Dick Smith and Harris Technology were not available for comment at time of press.