Analyst Ashok Kumar as spoken out strongly against the success of the Palm Pre, claiming that a combination of production issues and consumer antipathy toward Sprint would see a disappointing launch.  The Collins Stewart analyst claims to have heard Palm has “drastically reduced its production orders” and are facing “multiple hardware and software issues”, adding up to it being “highly unrealistic” that Palm would meet its own target of one million shipped units by then end of 2009.

Kumar also saves some harsh words for Sprint, suggesting that “it is highly unlikely customers of AT&T or Verizon will switch to Sprint.”  As for how that impacts on perceived success of the Pre, the analyst observes that “Sprint is the only major carrier that has signed on to sponsor the Pre platform”, seemingly ignoring the fact that the two companies have an exclusivity agreement in the US and that European partners have not yet been announced.

“Across the pond, carriers are taking a wait and see attitude given the high platform cost and lack of conviction on sell through. If Sprint does not match or beat AT&T’s subsidized iPhone price of $199, which translates to a subsidy in excess of $200, the Pre is DOA” Ashok Kumar, analyst, Collins Stewart

This isn’t the first time analysts have been wary about predicting board-sweeping success for the Pre.  Back at the tail-end of March, Palm’s supposed “abandonment” of the developer community was one of the key reasons for some analysts doom-laden forecasts, together with Sprint’s ailing fortunes.

As you might have guessed, given our site is called My Pre, we’re fans of the new Palm smartphone and of the company’s webOS platform.  Even with that in mind, it seems extreme to pin the Pre’s entire future on some rumors out of the supply chain checks, and the fact that they’ve decided – for better or for worse – not to overshadow the US launch with news of European partners.

[via CrunchGear]