With the Palm Pre etching closer to Sprint’s June 6 release date the buzz is building. The biggest surprise this week isn’t that we are getting closer to a launch but rather the speculation that two major US wireless carriers will be launching the device in early 2010: Verizon and At&t. We know that Sprint will have the exclusive launch beginning June 6 and expiring as soon as December 6 if the six-month window hold true. However according to Reuters,

“Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam said the Pre will come to Verizon in around six months time. Half a year seems to be all the exclusivity Sprint will get for the handset.”

This news was quickly followed with an appearance by At&t CEO Randall Stephenson at the All Things Digital conference Wednesday.

Stephenson said the second-largest U.S. carrier would like to eventually carry the Pre to bolster its lineup of smartphones that includes the popular iPhone, BlackBerry Bold, and HTC Fuze.

With Verizon, Sprint and At&t all offering the Palm Pre in 2010 could this device deliver the powerful punch needed to take on the iPhone?  If stock prices are any indication then we’d have to say yes as Palm’s stock price shot up this morning based on the news.  It will be very interesting to see if the Palm Pre can live up to the hype but we really have to wonder how well Sprint will do with their Palm Pre launch.  The expected device shortages which could impact sales for the first two months and knowing that two other carriers will offer the device in six months could be major set backs.  According to the Wall Street Journal,

Macquarie Securities analyst Philip Cusick estimates that Palm and Sprint will sell 1 million devices a quarter and 6 million in fiscal 2011. Needham & Co.’s Wolf said that to justify Palm’s valuation, the company will have to sell more than 10 million in 2011.

In comparison, AT&T Inc. (T) said the iPhone sold 2.4 million units its first quarter. Matthew Thornton, an analyst at Avian Securities LLC, estimates that close to a million Blackberry Bold units sold through AT&T in its first full quarter, while Verizon Wireless, jointly owned by Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) and Vodafone Group PLC (VOD), sold 2 million Blackberry Storms. Both AT&T and Verizon Wireless, however, have a much larger base and are able to sell more phones than Sprint.

Sprint and Palm declined to provide their own internal estimates.

[Via Wall Street Journal]