O2 has confirmed that it will start selling the Palm Pre in the UK on 16 October. Customers can buy the handset  directly from O2, the Carphone Warehouse, Phones4U and Business partners who are part of O2s specific partner programme. It will also be available for purchase online from the O2 shop.
The Palm Pre will be free to O2 customers taking out a 24-month contract and to customers taking an 18-month contract at 44.05 or 73.41 per month. All customers will receive unlimited UK data browsing over O2s HSDPA network and unlimited access to 7,500 wi-fi hotspots through both The Cloud and BT Openzone. The Palm Pre will also be sold with some innovative accessories, including the Palm Touchstone Charging Dock, which allows connectionless charging of the device.
Palm Pre running Palm webOS offers Palm Synergy features, multitasking capabilities, a full sliding keyboard, touch screen, robust messaging, GPS, and compatibility with 3G and secure wi-fi networks. It also offers support for Exchange ActiveSync policies.
The device will be available on current O2 business tariffs as a monthly bolt on, with the handset available for free to account holders on all business tariffs from 30.91on a 24 or 36-month contract. Palm Pre business customers can also receive the same benefits as existing O2 business customers, including unlimited calls between O2 customers, unlimited calls to 10 landlines, shareable minutes and texts between users, plus multi-user billing and activation and free, 24/7 access to business customer care specialists. 
Todays announcement reinforces O2s position as the home of the smartphone, says Telefonica O2 UK CEO, Ronan Dunne. With the addition of the excellent Palm Pre to our already extensive portfolio, we will continue to offer our customers the widest range of the very best devices on the market today.