“Dear Jack:
As a thank-you for your subscription to Palm.Net, we are please to make a special $100 discount offer for you to upgrade to the new Treo 600 by August 1, 2004.”
So begins the letter I received on my Palm i705 Mobitex handheld yesterday. The letter gushes about the Treo
“We have been using our Treo 600 smartphones since October and find them indispensable as everyday tools” and “The Treo 600 smarphone uses different voice and data networks than Palm.Net. As a result you’ll find a striking improvement in network and processor speed.”
and offers me a coupon for the $100 discount. I can buy the Treo either with or without activation on a cellular carrier, but of course buying it either unlocked or without a carrier contract will eat up the coupon discount. And OBTW the discount from PalmOne brings the price down to exactly the price were I to buy the Treo from a carrier directly. Thank you very much indeed.
Obviously PalmOne, which stopped selling Mobitex devices some time ago, is actively trying to move what must be their few remaining Mobitex users off that service. They may also be trying to move some Treo 600 inventory; after all, rumors of the next model Treo have been rampant for months. Fine. I’m an adult and can deal with change. (Just ask my real estate agent.)
But if you’re going to offer me an incentive to move, please don’t insult me by pretending that you’re offering me something special when you’re not. (And I’ll just ask this one picky technical question: what on earth does the network on which a device operates have to do with the processor speed of the device itself? Answer: Not a damn thing.)
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