A CNNMoney.com article posted earlier today is siting a JP Morgan analyst as saying the consumer-oriented Palm Centro smartphone is coming to AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

“Among the company’s new products, Coster said, will be a version of the Centro with phone service from AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. An exclusive deal with Sprint Nextel Corp. will expire soon, he wrote.

“In doing this 180-degree turn on the stock, we are putting a lot of faith in the technology and design competence of the new talent introduced to Palm by Elevation Partners,” he said.”

It has been rumored for some time now that the Centro, possibly in white, would be coming to AT&T early in 2008. The report from JP Morgan analyst Coster is the first I’ve seen that specifically mentions Verizon. We all knew that Centro would eventually make it to Verizon seeing as how Sprint and Verizon are both CDMA/EVDO based networks.

I wonder if we will see the AT&T Centro launched in February and a Verizon Wireless Centro in March or April. There are no rumors relating to which color(s) Verizon might order.

Sprint Nextel was the first US carrier to launch the Palm Centro. The Centro is selling for $99 or less and is currently available in three colors: black, red, and pink.

Read the full CNNMoney article…

[Thanks to the tipster who sent this in.]

SprintUsers.com forum member TheRobin has posted what appears to be a promotional photo of the rumored pink Palm Centro that is expected to arrive on Sprint sometime in January or February 2008.

The information on the release date has been all over the map with rumored launch dates of January 6, January 13, and February 14 (Valentine’s Day).

Palm and Sprint are going to sell a lot of these things.

[Thanks to the anonymous tipster who sent this in.]

TreoCentral.com member Nomad2000 has posted some pictures of the GSM AT&T Centro. (The pictures, reportedly, came from Hi-PDA.com.)

Palm has recently posted that they will be attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) being held in Las Vegas this January. The Sprint exclusive on the Centro is coming to and end by mid-January.

Is this a cleverly disguised hoax or are Palm and AT&T getting ready to launch another Centro early in 2008?

An anonymous reader has posted here on Foleo Fanatics that the pink Centro will be coming to Sprint on January 13, 2008. The anonymous poster writes:

“I work for Sprint and I have the exact date!!
Its coming out!!

1/13/2008!!

Thanks!!”

Now with all rumors, you need to take them with a grain of salt. It is possible that this rumor may not be true. However a Pink Centro leading up to Valentine’s Day is just the sort gimmick that gets people to buy phones. I also expect Sprint’s exclusive on the Centro to end around that date. As I have said on my 1SRC.com podcast, I believe that there needs to be a pink smartphone from Palm. So is this true? I guess we won’t know until the month before Valentine’s Day.

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Rumor: Pink Centro Coming to Sprint…

A TreoCentral forum member, “ashblades,” is claiming to be a Sprint employee and states that Palm and Sprint will be launching a pink Centro on February 8 just in time for Valentines Day. You can read the entire TreoCentral thread here.

I’ve been wondering aloud with some of the other 1SRC’ers about why Palm isn’t offering their smartphones in more rainbow flavors. With Palm’s new found emphasis on the consumer market using the Centro as the vehicle to reach more feature phone users, it would seem that more color choices is a logical thing to offer.

Palm has offered the Treo 680 in several colors prior to the Cingular acquisition by AT&T. The copper Treo seemed to be the first color to sell out with customers clamoring to snatch up second-hand units on eBay once the primary channel dried up. Palm has seemed to have an on again-off again attitude toward colored devices. In the mid-90’s Palm released a teal colored Palm Vx and a clear cased Palm IIIxe. Handspring’s (now a part of Palm) Visor Deluxe line also came in a rainbow assortment of colors. (I did get an orange Visor). And there have been a few other limited and special edition Palm or Handspring devices since then.

While it is impossible to know if the poster at TreoCentral is credible at this time there is a prescient for a pink Centro late this coming winter.