All of the new commercials are Christmas-themed and all feature Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, though they are careful to leave it unscathed by Verizon’s criticism of AT&T (T). The standout among the three, this re-creation of the “Island of Misfit Toys” scene from the 1964 Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated Christmas television special, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Note that the conceit of the ad is that iPhone has been banished to the Island of Misfit Toys not because of its quality but because of of AT&T’s 3G network.

A pretty brilliant escalation of Verizon’s marketing battle with AT&T and one that suggests through its deference to the iPhone that there may be more to these Verizon iPhone rumors than previously thought.

Below, Verizon’s other two ads.

According to News.com, 100 people or so lined up outside Verizon’s midtown Manhattan store last night prior to its midnight opening. And various reports posted to Twitter suggest there were queues at other outlets as well, though quite a bit shorter (see below; click to enlarge).

In any event, the fact that there are lines at all must be a welcome sight for Verizon (VZ), which has been looking for a strong rival to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, and for Motorola (MOT), which hopes Droid will revive its much-diminished post-Razr cellphone business. As one Verizon subscriber eager to trade up to Droid told me, “it’s the best smart phone not made by Apple.”

With endorsements like this, Motorola should be working a bit harder on branding the device as its own. Right now, the Droid marketing push from Verizon Wireless is so overwhelming that you’d think CEO Lowell McAdam designed it himself. Why aren’t we hearing from Motorola as well?

“Droid is potentially a game changer for Motorola,” iSuppli analyst Tina Teng said in a recent research note. “Motorola now is no longer just emphasizing slick form factors, such as it did with its RAZR handset. The company now has focused on the hottest segment of the global mobile handset market–providing compelling smartphone products that are usable and expandable through third-party applications.”

That being the case, Motorola might want to do a bit more to get its name out there.

This time it’s going to be different. That’s because Microsoft (MSFT) is paying to make it so. The company has teamed up with Fox to sponsor a “Family Guy” special built around Windows 7. The show, dubbed “Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show,” after creator Seth MacFarlane and voice talent Alex Borstein, will air Sunday, Nov. 8, at 8:30 pm, EST and PST.

The new episode will be free of commercial breaks but presumably rife with “clever” references to Windows. Microsoft agencies Universal McCann and Crispin, Porter and Bogusky, which were tapped to weave the company’s marketing messages into the program, will make sure of that.

“You’ll see us deeply integrated into the content,” Gayle Troberman, general manager of consumer engagement and advertising at Microsoft, told Ad Age. “You’ll hear a lot about how Windows 7 can help you simplify your PC–it’s simple, fast and easy to use.”

Sounds…hysterical.

Incidentally, it’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time MacFarlane has inked an advertising deal with a tech company. He’s currently working with Google (GOOG) on a project called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy,” which involves humorous animated shorts with built-in advertisements syndicated through the search giant’s AdSense advertising system.

“We believe the press reports late Thursday afternoon that Verizon would not launch the Palm Pre are incorrect,” Goldberg wrote. “Our checks continue to point to healthy carrier demand for the Pre early in calendar 2010. We believe Palm has placed orders with the supply chain for another version of the Pre with features highly consistent with a Verizon launch.”

Over at Morgan Keegan & Co, Tavis McCourt was equally dubious. “Palm reiterated its FY2010 guidance, which we believe REQUIRES a launch at Verizon (you just can’t get there with just Sprint and AT&T),” he wrote. “Verizon has carried just about every Palm product in its history, and the Pre is clearly the best. We do not have insight as to the marketing support Palm will get from Verizon, but we see little risk in not getting a placement at this carrier. The timing of the rumor post-deal makes it equally as dubious as the timing of the ‘Nokia will buy Palm’ rumor during the roadshow.”

McCourt, it’s worth noting, believes the Pre will come to Verizon Wireless early next year. “Feb. holds the potential to be a strong Pre quarter as shipments to Sprint likely stabilize and distribution expands to Verizon Wireless (our assumption),” he explains. “Palm’s success at Sprint has typically been a good barometer for shipment trends at VZW and, with a postpaid sub base that’s roughly 3x as large as Sprint’s CDMA business, the market opportunity at VZW is much larger. However, Pre trends at Sprint were aided by the device’s near term exclusivity and a large base of existing Palm users upgrading their devices, both factors that VZW lacks.”

UPDATE: Jim Gerace, executive director of media relations at Verizon, tells E-Commerce Times that the company will offer the smartphone in January as planned.

UPDATED: Sources are telling Boy Genius that TheStreet.com’s report is bogus as well.

Sources close to the company tell TheStreet.com that Verizon has reconsidered its plans to add Palm’s new smart phone to its lineup.

An interesting rumor, but clearly one that’s to be taken with a grain of salt, if not a salt lick entire.

Why? Well, Palm (PALM), which declined comment on the report, just yesterday reaffirmed its fiscal year 2010 outlook and its planned product and carrier launches. Which means it doesn’t foresee any material changes in its business in the near future. Presumably, Verizon (VZ) passing on the Pre would count as such a change.

Moreover, the same sources who told the TheStreet.com that Verizon was going to give Palm the high hat also said the company might take a more diplomatic approach to the situation and simply order just a few Pres with no intention of lending the device much marketing support.

So, as I said, to be taken with a grain of salt…

One thing’s certain, though: If the rumor does prove true, it’s a serious blow not just to Palm, but to Verizon customers pining for a decent handset as well. Unless, of course, Verizon has cut an iPhone deal with Apple (AAPL)–in which case it’s just lousy news for Palm.

UPDATE: Analysts who follow Palm are already lining up to debunk TheStreet.com’s report.

An interesting variation on the “membership drive” and one that’s gotten Tagged in hot water with New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, who intends to sue the company “for deceptive e-mail marketing practices and invasion of privacy.”

“This company stole the address books and identities of millions of people,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Consumers had their privacy invaded and were forced into the embarrassing position of having to apologize to all their e-mail contacts for Tagged’s unethical–and illegal–behavior. This very virulent form of spam is the online equivalent of breaking into a home, stealing address books and sending phony mail to all of an individual’s personal contacts. We would never accept this behavior in the real world, and we cannot accept it online.”

Tagged, for its part, claims this is all just a big misunderstanding. In a statement of its own, the company denied abusing its users’ personal address books, saying, essentially, it had their consent to do so.

“When our company tested a new registration process, we discovered that our ‘invite your friends’ language was confusing,” said Tagged CEO Greg Tseng. “…In no instance did Tagged access a person’s personal address book without their consent and no emails were sent without the person giving us permission. We realize that some were confused and accidentally agreed to invite their friends.”

Oh, and next time you register for a social network, be sure to read its Terms of Service–especially the portions that are presented in ALL CAPS. They might be important. From Tagged’s Terms of Service:

“E) Notice Regarding Commercial Email

MEMBERS CONSENT TO RECEIVE COMMERCIAL E-MAIL MESSAGES FROM TAGGED, AND ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT THEIR EMAIL ADDRESSES AND OTHER PERSONAL INFORMATION MAY BE USED BY TAGGED FOR THE PURPOSE OF INITIATING COMMERCIAL E-MAIL MESSAGES.”

“We estimate that sales of the Palm Pre slowed again over the past week compared to the prior week but likely remain over 30,000 compared to less than 40,000 in the prior week and our estimate of 50,000-60,000 in the week ending June 26th,” Pali analyst Walter Piecyk said in a research note this morning.

Now, to be fair, the holiday weekend may have negatively affected sales. And another report from Piper Jaffray suggests that the Pre is cutting into sales of RIM’s Blackberry. So there’s that. Still, if Pali’s estimates are correct, it’s pretty clear that demand is tapering off a bit.

Perhaps it’s time to ramp up the Pre’s marketing. Problem is, marketing costs money and Palm doesn’t have very much of that right now.

Microsoft Promotes Steven Sinofsky to President, Windows Division
Tami Reller to lead Windows Marketing and Finance

REDMOND, Wash. — July 8, 2009 — Microsoft Corp. today promoted Steven Sinofsky to president of the Windows Division. Sinofsky, a 20-year Microsoft veteran, most recently led the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, contributing to the Oct. 22 availability of Windows 7.

As president, Sinofsky assumes responsibility for the Windows business including both the engineering and marketing functions for Windows, Windows Live and Internet Explorer.

“Steven Sinofsky has demonstrated the ability to lead large teams that deliver great products. The work he and the team have done in getting ready to ship Windows 7 really defines how to develop and ship world-class software,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. “He is a perfect fit to lead the Windows group.”

Sinofsky began his career at Microsoft in 1989 in engineering and has held multiple positions on Microsoft product teams. His full biography can be found here.

In addition, Tami Reller, currently chief financial officer (CFO) for the Windows Division, will take on the additional responsibility for marketing. Bill Veghte will be moving to a new leadership role in the company to be announced later this year. The transition between Reller and Veghte is timed to take place in late July when Windows 7 reaches the release to manufacturing (RTM) milestone.

Reller joined Microsoft in 2001 as part of the acquisition of Great Plains Software Inc. Reller was the CFO of Great Plains at the time of acquisition and had previously served in a number of senior marketing, sales and general management roles. Since joining Microsoft, she has held a variety of leadership positions including corporate vice president of marketing for Microsoft Business Solutions, where she was responsible for the launch of the Microsoft Dynamics brand. She will report to Sinofsky and will retain her responsibilities as CFO.

“In addition to her in-depth knowledge of the Windows business, I’m excited that Tami will bring to Windows her experience in marketing and finance, along with a history of fostering a strong and profitable partner ecosystem in business software,” Sinofsky said.

Jon DeVaan will continue in his role as senior vice president, reporting to Sinofsky. DeVaan managed the engineering team responsible for creating the core components of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

And now, the all-hands memo from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

Windows is one of the franchise brands and products for Microsoft. Each new version of Windows is a visible and significant milestone for the company. We will soon finish Windows 7 and hand it off to our partners for general availability on October 22nd.

With this transition, we want to ensure we are setting up for the next release and continue the market leadership and momentum that we have with Windows today. Accordingly, I am pleased to announce today that Steven Sinofsky will be promoted to President of the Windows Division. Windows 7 is receiving terrific feedback from customers, partners, analysts alike, and the entire Windows team has done a great job.

With this promotion, Steven assumes responsibility for the Windows business including both the engineering and marketing functions for Windows, Windows Live and Internet Explorer. Jon DeVaan will continue in his role as senior vice president, reporting to Steven. In this role, Jon will continue to manage the engineering team responsible for creating the core components of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and is responsible for the PC ecosystem engagement and technical readiness.

We are also pleased to announce today that Tami Reller, currently CFO for the Windows Division, will take on the additional responsibility of marketing for the Windows Division. Tami brings a strong background in delivering successful brands to market, most recently with the introduction of Dynamics in her previous role as marketing vice president for MBS. Tami takes over the marketing responsibility from Bill Veghte who will take a new leadership role in the company to be announced later this year. Bill and Tami will work closely together through this month to ensure we deliver on the momentum currently building for the launch of Windows 7.

Under Bill’s leadership, the team has re-energized our approach to marketing and selling Windows and the PC, built stronger relationships with our partners and has laid the right plans for delivering Windows 7 into the market. In particular, the “I’m a PC” campaign has really helped energize the brand and create emotional connections between our product and our customers. Bill has a long track record of success at Microsoft in a variety of capacities and we look forward to his continued contributions.

As we start the new fiscal year, we do so with a full slate of great products, healthy businesses and strong leadership. We would like to recognize Steven, Bill and Jon for their leadership of Windows and congratulate Tami on her new expanded role.

Steve

“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”

– Palm investor Roger McNamee

Palm (PALM) seems to have satiated pent-up early demand for its new Pre smartphone, constrained supplies be damned. In a pair of investor notes issued today, analysts at Pali Research and JP Morgan say that sales of the Pre have tapered off to a point where supply and demand are roughly in parity.

“We have concluded our 3rd round of channel checks for the Pre,” writes JP Morgan analyst Paul Coster, who notes that demand for the handset is hovering at about 40,000 per week. “The gap between supply and demand has closed at Sprint and BestBuy stores, waitlists are eliminated or down, and most stores now have Pre devices in stock.”

Pali Research analyst Walter Piecyk also surveyed the Pre landscape and reached a similar conclusion, though he sees the slowing of sales as a bit more pronounced. “We believe that Palm Pre sales have slowed over the past week for Sprint to under 40,000 from 50,000-60,000 last week,” he writes. “…We suspect that if sales continue to moderate, Sprint would increase its marketing budget for the product. The marketing budget behind the product has been somewhat limited to date compared to the marketing push that Apple does.”

Indeed. And let’s not forget that Apple (AAPL) has a new handset on the market that’s been selling quite well. Makes you wonder if this ebb in demand for the Pre is somehow related.

Guess it’s looking like Palm investor Roger McNamee’s hyperbolic predictions about iPhone-to-Pre conversion aren’t going to quite pan out.

“We think the Palm Pre is by far the best product we’ve ever shipped and I am very happy with how we are managing the launch,” CEO Jon Rubinstein said on an earnings call Thursday, though he refused to disclose actual sales numbers. “We are successfully ramping supply to meet demand that is strong and growing.”

Rubinstein gave strong emphasis to Palm’s new operating system. “The most important indicator of our success is that customer response has been simply great, especially to Palm webOS. Just as Palm pioneered PDAs in the 90s, we believe it has now pioneered the mobile operating platform for the next 10 years and beyond. WebOS integrates information and services from the cloud and offers a true multi-tasking environment. We feel it takes better advantage of the benefits of Web 3.0 than any other mobile platform available today.”

Quite a claim, especially given the incumbents in the market and Palm’s history. The company has never been strong on execution, and while it’s done a great job of bringing the Pre and webOS to market, it has clearly stumbled a bit. Thanks to supply constraints, Palm may be leaving some sales on the table. And it hasn’t done itself any favors by delaying the release of the webOS software development kit.

WebOS won’t be the “the mobile operating platform for the next 10 years and beyond” unless developers are actually, you know, writing applications for it. And there are far too few of them doing that right now because Palm has, so far, restricted access to the SDK.

Rubinstein says that will soon change, though. “We are eager to expand access to our SDK but we need to do so in a measured and methodical fashion, so we can be sure we are providing a great development experience,” he said Thursday. “Over the next few weeks, we expect the program to grow from hundreds to thousands of developers and our goal from there is to make our SDK available to everyone by the end of this summer.”

OK. So Palm would rather do things right than too quickly. That’s understandable–especially if it has more products in the pipeline, as it most certainly does. Given the rivals against which it must compete, the company cannot afford even a single misstep. If it is to truly to revitalize its brand, it must execute, as Rubinstein well knows.

“My highest priority is execution,” he said. “That means delivering world-class products and customer support. Operational excellence in our supply chain management. Strong carrier relationships. Great sales and marketing. Strong back-office functions….Palm already has a foundation in all of these areas. We’ve been in this business for years. We have long-established industry relationships and we’ve successfully brought mobile products to market for over a decade. This footing can create a real advantage.”

But only if it’s managed well. So far, so good. We’ll find out how Palm’s really doing next quarter, which will more fully reflect the impact of the Pre.

You’ll find more notes from yesterday’s call here.

“PC unit growth was stronger than we expected in all markets but Eastern Europe in the first quarter of 2009. In particular, consumer shipments were much stronger than we anticipated,” said Gartner’s George Shiffler. “However, professional shipments continued to struggle, and we think much of the growth in consumer units was due to vendors and the channel restocking inventories rather than an upsurge in demand.”

Well, hopefully that will all change after the October launch of Windows 7, right?

Nope. Not according to Gartner (IT), anyway. Unless Microsoft (MSFT) is planning another $300 million ad campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld.

“Unless Microsoft mounts a major marketing campaign in support of Windows 7, we think consumers will simply adopt the new operating system as they would normally buy new PCs and/or replace old ones,” Shiffler said. “As for professional users, we still expect them to put off adopting the new OS for at least a year until they have fully tested their applications against it.”

Interesting thing to say in advance of a product launch on which so much is riding, don’t you think? Unless you’re already trying to foster the perception of excess demand. As Gartner analyst Hugues De La Vergne noted last month, “It’s important to have a success like selling out. The Pre has to live up to the hype or else they’ll lose their momentum to rival products coming out soon after.” And clearly, that’s a very real danger here. Though, to be fair, there are other possible explanations. It could simply be responsible production scheduling. It might also be that Palm’s financial situation has forced the company to temper its launch run-rate in order to retain adequate capital for marketing and customer service. Or it could be that Pre really is the blockbuster device Palm (PALM) and Sprint (S) believe it to be and no amount of supply will be enough to meet the initial and overwhelming demand for it. It could be that the Pre is the next Apple (AAPL) iPhone.

“What the iPhone has shown is that if you really do have a compelling device that is revolutionary then customers will switch to your service,” said Hesse. “We think the Palm Pre stacks up very well against the iPhone.”

We’ll find out come June 6.