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There are 2m Centros out there and they’re going online

Unlocked Palm Centro SmartphoneThere’s news from Palm today that its small and inexpensive Centro has now sold two million units and that, according to AdMob, it’s one of the  most popular phones for accessing the mobile Internet.

Such rankings are not quite the endorsement of a quality Web experience as they might seem (and as they were widely touted as representing when similar statistics were tossed about regarding the iPhone)  as users who buy phones like the Centro probably have Web access in mind as one of their purchase criteria. Nonetheless, the Centro’s success has been a testament to the power of more mass-market-friendly pricing and the rising interest in QWERTY devices that are blossoming despite the iPhone’s form-factor influence.

From a software perspective, it’s an interesting coincidence that news of the Centro’s popularity breaks on the same day as Microsoft releases results of its “Mojave Experiment” aimed at showing users the advantages of its PC operating system. Of course, PCs are different than smartphones. However, Palm’s race to bring out its Nova operating system to replace the likely-to-sunset Palm OS does not seem to be deterring the Centro buyer much. Developers, though, are a different story.