Why limited Palm Pre supplies might be a good thing

When was the last time you walked into a Sprint (NYSE: S) retailer and walked out of the store without wasting half a day waiting for an agent to activate your new handset? Activating a mobile phone generally takes a good long while, regardless of how experienced a sales rep might be – and that applies to pretty much all wireless carriers. One of the biggest problems during the headlining launch of the iPhone 3G were the long lines and delays caused by having to register each handset with AT&T (NYSE: T) before leaving an Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) store. That same problem could have potentially mucked up Sprint’s Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre launch, had there been sufficient launch-day stock.

Limited Palm Pre stock might have prevented massive lines as Pre-hopefuls wait for their Palm Pre’s to be activated in the store.

InsideSprintNow has shed some light on the Palm Pre activation procedure, and Sprint’s Palm Pre activation procedures seem to be fairly similar to Apple and AT&T’s iPhone 3G activation process. The Palm Pre will be activated in Sprint’s system by Sprint agents, allowing the customer to finalize the activation by turning the Palm Pre’s “Hands-free Activation” feature. The silver lining, it seems, in the Palm Pre’s limited launch supplies is that we won’t be seeing droves of eager Pre fans waiting to have their Palm Pre registered on Sprint’s network.

The new activation information confirms that Sprint reps will Pre-activate (see what we just did there?) the Palm Pre on Sprint’s internal network. While the customer activation process is dead simple, Sprint customers will still have to enter all relevant information into Sprint’s system before allowing the Palm Pre to be activated. Here’s to hoping that long-delays in waiting for Palm Pre activations don’t hamper Sprint’s Pre launch.