Yes, you read that correctly. According to a ‘most-trusty of ninja’ at the Boy Genius Report, Best Buy will only receive 4,250 phones from Palm for the June 6th Pre launch. With an estimated 1,000 stores (estimate from a Best Buy Mobile rep), that’s just four phones per store for launch.

The story doesn’t get much better for other retailers. Radio Shack is only expected to see the Pre at 721 of their stores, each of which are expected to receive two units. The 721 stores fall in the highest expected consumer base for the Pre.

This is looking like terrible news for Palm, and it’s definitely the wrong way to go about generating hype. It makes me wonder what happened. Did they short-order touch screens? Are they worried about network stability? Was this just really poor decision making? Whatever it was, it’s bad, and I’m guessing this will go down as a bad year for Palm.

Seems like all the news points to the Pre this week, and probably for good reason. The Pre is Palm’s final hope, but the company has given itself plenty of setbacks. For one, their pricing is set to match the iPhone, but only after a $100 mail-in rebate.

Best Buy is looking to give Palm some help by making the rebate instant, delivering your Pre for $200 out the door. Of course you’ll still have to sign a two-year service agreement, which is pretty much industry standard for receiving a discounted phone. Remember, though, Pre stock is going to be limited at launch, so don’t wait around to get yours.

Source: Brighthand