Palm CEO Says Its Smart Phone Pre Will Attract Developers

Palm Inc. (PALM) said it has made developing applications for its new Pre smart phone easy enough to attract a broad range of developers, Chief Executive Ed Colligan said in an interview on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress here Wednesday.

Colligan said all Web developers would be in a position to build applications for the Pre, which is powered by a new operating system called WebOS. There are about 10 million Web developers worldwide.

In addition, Palm will be able to leverage a community of 30,000 developers who have worked on its previous PalmOS operating system and with whom it has a long-standing relationship.

"We have made it a priority for the new system to be as easy as possible to develop for," Colligan said.

As the number of operating systems for mobile phones grows exponentially, competition for the best developers is growing fierce. When Palm announced WebOS, analysts at CCS Insight expressed concern that because the device would initially only be available in the U.S. and exclusively from Sprint, They said Palm would find it hard to draw developers who have the option of focusing on larger opportunities with other platforms.

Colligan, however, said he's more concerned by controlling the quality of the applications it will offer on the Pre, which is why it plans to roll out an application store that will let it pick and chose the best of the lot. It expects to unveil details of how the store will work before the Pre hits the U.S. market.

Palm has previously said its new device would ship by the end of the first half. It will also be available in Europe and negotiations with operators there are underway, Colligan said.

Having an easy-to-access and well furnished-application store is fast becoming an essential requirement for both phone makers and operators. In Barcelona this week, Finnish handset giant Nokia Corp. (NOK), software behemoth Microsoft (MSFT) and mobile operator Orange all unveiled application stores that will make it easier for consumers to buy new programs and services for their phones.

Apple (AAPL) is the first company to spot the potential of application stores and that of the iPhone has been extraordinarily successful. Apple said last month that a total of 15,000 applications are available on it and that downloads have hit 500 million in just six months.