Itchy trigger-finger or wishful thinking: either way, it’s interesting to see that the Palm Pre has shown up on Dutch carrier Hi’s website.  A new support page isn’t necessarily big news, but given that Hi is a VMNO brand of KPN and they, in turn, are strongly associated with Telefonica, it makes sense given that O2 (owned by Telefonica – are you confused yet?) is a strong frontrunner for Pre exclusivity.

In fact Telefonica have been tipped as an exclusive Pre carrier since March this year, albeit in Spain, the UK and Latin America.  The recent rumors from The Guardian newspaper tip their subsidiary O2 as official Pre carrier in the UK, an announcement expected to be made on Tuesday July 7th.

Other rumors have suggested a roughly September launch for the Pre in Romania and other parts of Europe.  Next week’s announcement is unlikely to reveal much aside from Palm’s UK plans, but assuming Telefonica are the parent network behind distribution there it’s pretty safe to assume they’ve clinched the deal in other locations.

[via Engadget]

• Palm Pre: An early review
• Palm Ad Could Reveal Drop Date For Centro, And Score You One For Free
• Nokia Aeon gets suspicious Dutch listing: early April Fools likely
• Pre Community Q&A with Sprint and Palm
• BeBook Mini & BeBook 2 with 3G get video demo

Original post:
Palm Pre appears on Dutch carrier’s support site