The Live Indian Entertainment Blog

Palm confirmed on Monday that the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will be coming to AT&T. The company did not announce an actual date of release, simply that they would arrive in "the coming months."

The timing of the announcement is not coincidental: analysts last week were setting a price target for Palm of zero, meaning they think the stock is worthless.

The stock had fallen all the way to $4 a share on Friday. With the announcement, the stock rose $0.18 in early trading.

Palm continues to struggle against other smartphone platforms. While the iPhone undeniably set the bar for smartphones, the sheer volume of different Android handsets is yet another challenge. Additionally, the webOS platform has a mere 2,000 apps in its Catalog, vs. Android's 30,000 and the App Store's seemingly innumerable set of apps.

The announcement, once the handsets launch, will mean that Palm's webOS devices will be on all three of the largest carriers in the U.S. (Sprint, first; then Verizon, and AT&T). Aside from the change to GSM, the hardware is the same as for the Plus models on Verizon.

However, the AT&T versions of the Plus devices won't support the mobile Wi-Fi hotspot feature of the Verizon version, which allows you to turn your phone into a mobile router. In place of that, however, customers (of course) will have access to AT&T huge wi-fi hotspot network. And with that, there is a new feature called “Whisper," which automatically connects AT&T Hotspot customers to any AT&T wi-fi access point without requiring them to re-enter their credentials.

Pricing will be $149.99 for the Pre Plus, and $49.99 for the Pixi Plus. Both will require a mail-in rebate, though it's possible that Best Buy, which has done so in the past, will offer the models with an "instant" rebate.