Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest carrier,has been selling the the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus smartphones since Jan. 25, although a report surfaced Wednesday that Verizon might begin pulling them off their shelves. However, Verizon officials Thursday called the devices "important" and said they would continue to be part of Verizon's marketing lineup. and issued a release describing several features.

Verizon admitted that its initial marketing of Palm devices was "below expectations," Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein wrote in a yesterday. However, Rubinstein said steps were taken to accelerate sales with the help of Palm Brand Ambassadors. He said the campaign was also boosting its marketing with more Palm ads on billboards, bus shelters, buses and subway stations.

The nation's second largest carrier, AT&T, said in January that it would this year, and some reports put the , based on filings at the Federal Communications Commission.

Even T-Mobile USA, the fourth-largest U.S. wireless carrier, is expected to sell a Palm webOS smartphone by mid-year, Keilhack said.

Getting AT&T and and T-Mobile on board would be a key move for Palm, since both use networks based on GSM, which is widely used globally, noted Kevin Burden, an analyst at ABI Research. "Getting GSM carriers is the direction that Palm needs to go, and I'm not sure why they haven't done it up to this point," he said. "Sprint and Verizon haven't done it for them."