Palm Pre Feb 15 Launch Rumor Persists 21

We've pretty much taken the accepted wisdom out there as accurate, that the rumored Palm Pre February 15th launch is simply too good to be true.  This despite the fact that we've received reports that Sprint employees (the ones who are left, anyway) are already receiving training on the device.  The reason we and most others don't have a lot of faith in the rumor -- February 15th is the date that the Palm Treo Pro is set to finally launch on Sprint's network, and Pro and Pre sound awfully familiar.  Add to that the fact that Februrary 15th falls within the Mobile World Congress convention in Barcelona and you get another confluence of problems for the date: all the journalists and bloggers who would want to rush out to review it will be off in Europe hunting down Windows Mobile, Nokia, and Android news (plus whatever they can find out from Palm's own appearance at MWC09).

Yet we have to admit, the Feb 15 rumor won't die.  We're continuing to receive reports from a handful of sources who claim that not only is the 15th accurate, but is in fact designed from the get-go as a combined Treo Pro/Palm Pre launch.  They insist that there isn't a conflation of Pre and Pro going on here.

We're of course hopeful that the Pre will launch sooner rather than later, but even in our wildest dreams we don't really expect the smartphone to launch earlier than mid-March.  We'd love to be wrong, though, and if these reports are true, we just might be.

Thanks, Anonymous Tipsters!