Treo Lifestyle: Expanding In Europe (Finally)
About two years ago I was at the Heathrow airport in London heading to the PalmSource Euro DevCon in Germany when I came across a large Vodafone poster advertising the BlackBerry (pictured below). At the time the Treo 600 was distributed exclusively by Orange and I fumed over how little marketing support this carrier had provided for the Treo as a unique smartphone both outdoors and in the press. At the time the answer from Orange was “We don’t market individual phones.”
I was therefore extremely pleased to receive the image below [Thank you very much to my friend Ed over at E-Series] which now almost exactly two years later shows the new Vodafone Treo 750v inside an empty briefcase (reference to ‘Leave Your Laptop Behind’) on a huge billboard at the Heathrow Express station at the airport. I guess that perseverance is finally paying off and our Treo has a renewed shot at making it really big in Europe.
Evidently with the enormous marketing support that it always provides for its leading-edge mobile phones (particularly business oriented ones such as our Treo) Vodafone is clearly among the best carrier partners that a company such as Palm could have chosen.
At the same time, Microsoft is also helping to spread the word by contributing significant funds to promote the Treo 750v across Europe. For example, here above is one of the ads running on the German rail network stating that the Treo has “E-Mail, Word, Excel, PowerPoint. And enough place for your family photos." while noting also that "With Windows Mobile and with Microsoft Office Mobile you can decide when, where, and how you want to work".
Separately, I know that many Treonauts in the US are anxious to get their hands on their very own GSM Treo 750v and there are ‘some’ hopes that this might be possible – albeit not quite via regular channels. It appears that some Vodafone stores in the UK are selling the Treo 750v without a contract (but not necessarily ‘unlocked’) for about $760 and its likely that some people will resell them via, for example, ebay. At the same time we are trying to source the Treo 750v so as to hopefully be able to sell it via the Treonauts Accessories Shop soon.
Microsoft helps Palm to promote RECENTLY launched Treo 750v [via MSMobiles]
Treonauts are always spreading around the world… 
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Comments
Andrew, Yes, please get us the Treo750v as soon as possible, as I don't want to wait 1.5 years to see if Rogers here in Canada will ever get one.
I live in Italy and I had a 270, a 600 and now I am at the second 650. I can tell you lot of people use Treos, mostly 650. They sold well here. Especially to Mac users.
By the way, even if I am a Vodafone customer, I am not interested in the 750v because I do not want to start from scratch with Windows Mobile, a technology I do not trust. I want to kep all the applications and databases I have used in these last 5 years. I still want a device that runs Palm OS.
No way I'm buying a phone with windows OS! It's high time free GSM Treo 700p is introduced in Europe.
With Wifi! With good camera!
Otherwise the upgrade is not worth - I wouldn't bother getting a new phone, I'd get a cheaper 650 instead.
OR, a new firware for Treo650 that includes at least Wifi support.
I think that neglecting palmOS users for this much time is rediculous from Palm. The Treo 650 was introduced last spring, the wifi driver was hacked after 2-3 months, and more than 1.5 YEARS!!! passed without a firware that enables wifi on Treo650.
Irresponsible from Palm.
It must be politics. Wrong politics.
It seems Palm does not have a good-enough-plan to invade the european market. :(
WindowsOS has a better one :(
Andrew, as much as I appreciate your passion with Treos and visiting great dedicated site of yours, recently I started to feel that you are giving only certain angle about Treos and miss or exclude the failures or mistakes Palm company does in terms of their product strategies.
Palm, once upon a times being the leader in PDAs and PDA phones, is making big mistakes and being very sluggish in continuing with better models and features. Looking at current Treo 700 and 750, so called new models, they are absolutely basic derivatives of Treo 600, not even 650! Same frame, same thickness, same weight, same screen size, same functionalities! And, it has been 3+ years that Treos have not had a significant change, except here there such as keyboard, no antenna, camera resolution, etc.
In my opinion, these are not enough for all this time passed. In automotive, this is called ‘facelift’ which is basically same car but little changes in front look, lights, buttons!
As a current Treo owner, why would I spend big bucks to get a 700 or 750, if it will continue to give me the SAME THING with extra spices! Besides, Palm OS of these models are not out there.
People who love Treos have been expecting significant advancements in thickness, weight, screen size, camera resolution, internal memory, Wi-Fi and certainly availability of Palm OS at the same time. Palm company is lagging way behind now in the competition and terribly disappoints to please its current customers, in my opinion. At least, I am one of them.
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