PalmOS powered Centro banks on growing consumer appeal for smartphones

Palm has unveiled its $99.99 Centro smartphone that aims to bring the Treo's functionalities to the consumer segment.

The company cited market data from IDC claiming that the smartphone market is shifting from a professional to a consumer audience.

IDC projects that 13.8 million smartphones will ship this year, increasing to 74.4 million by 2011.

The Palm Centro features a touchscreen and keyboard, as well as a built-in camera and Bluetooth wireless connectivity. Whereas the Treo comes in 'business grey', the Centro will ship in the more 'consumer-friendly' colours of black and ruby red.

The phone runs the PalmOS operating system. Surfing the web and mobile sites is enabled by a special mobile browser, but requires a special data subscription.

Similar to its Treo cousin, users can set up the Centro for push email for corporate messages, allowing email to be delivered automatically to the handheld.

The smartphone has also been optimised to work with popular online email services such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail.

The Centro is available in the US through Sprint. Palm did not immediately return a request for information on international availability.

The $99.99 price tag marks an introductory price after $50 instant savings and a $100 mail-in-rebate for users subscribing to a data plan. The phone comes with a two-year subscription to Sprint's CDMA network.