Palm appears to be exercising caution with regard to its Pre smartphone, particularly so with its launch date close at hand! Though Sprint and Palm Tuesday announced the Pre price-range, and its June 6 release date, they are essentially maintaining a low-key about Pre’s post-launch performance.

That something is probably amiss with Pre can be gauged from the statement made by Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint, who he warned about some possible shortages of the smartphone, when he said at an investor conference on Tuesday: “We don't intend to advertise it heavily early on because we think we are going to have shortages for a while. We won't be able to keep up with demand for the device in the early period of time.”

Though there has been no official disclosure about the number of Pre units that would initially be made available, still some sites like Precentral.net are talking of an approximate number of 375,000 units – to be distributed countrywide to Sprint, Best Buy, Radio Shack, and Walmart stores.

Going by a Bloomberg report, some analysts feel that Sprint and Palm are purposely trying to create an ‘artificial scarcity’ to heighten Pre’s appeal. While there is no confirmation, in case the supply is actually being ‘limited’ on purpose, the companies are running the risk of putting off a lot of people!