Jim Van had more than his 15 minutes of fame when Twitter voyeurism led to the Palm Pre April 30th launch rumor. One day and a few rumors later, Mr. Van’s twitter account has been made private and tech lovers across the web are engaged in a furious debate about whether Jim Van’s info is accurate or not, and furthermore, if he is telling the truth or not.

We’ve been in touch with Jim and after an open dialogue and a few back and forths, he sent me an email that he hoped would end all the discussion:

Hi Rob:

Thanks for your kind comments and understanding. It’s why I’m writing; to inform you of a decision I’ve made, and why, that involves you and other Pre enthusiasts.

I was very excited when I received my Pre for testing earlier this week. When I made my comments concerning my Pre on Twitter, they were intended for a small group of friends (<20) and anyone else who followed me on Twitter. Since I use Twitter differently than, obviously, many other people, I got an initial kick out of watching my group of followers grow, figuring that in a few weeks, either post-release of the product, or through waning interest in the subject, that the additional 20 or so people following me due to the Pre comments would drop off, as I tend to discuss mainly other things that are most likely irrelevant to them.

As of last night, I was forced to make my Twitter account private, not due to the NDA that I signed (it’s a final beta, so the NDA is much looser than previous NDAs issued to earlier testers, from what I understand), but because of a vocal number of users, who are wasting everyone’s time, but my own and theirs in particular, by calling into question my credibility, threatening me, and one sage individual somehow attempting, in 140 characters or less, to pin the current economic crisis on me…. I’m going to reject all requests to follow me until a few weeks after the Pre’s release. I neither need nor want a fan club.

Quite simply, as CEO of a small, growing IT Services firm, as father of my kid, husband to my bride, and an incredible fortunate person to have a small circle of close personal friends with whom I try to spend whatever time I have left, I simply don’t have time to respond to the flamer comments, let alone all the others who are simply curious. I’ve spent at least as much time responding to what I do know about the Pre as I have playing with it.

Additionally, those that have been busy flaming me should look at the world around them. Healthcare, education, energy, and simple courteous conduct have all deteriorated to the point that they’re largely “remember when it was like…?”. The economic crisis is setting up tent cities in those areas that have temperate climates, with the homeless in places such as Providence, Boston and New York essentially screwed. It’s said that 1 in 4 families is suffering from food insecurity, e.g.: they, their kids, pets, etc. go to bed hungry many nights. Perhaps instead of expending energy flaming someone over a printed circuit board encased in a piece of plastic (pretty as it is) should focus their energies on some more immediate, impactful issue.

After a good night’s sleep, and further consideration, I’ve decided that I’m not going to spend another second on this issue. I’ll leave it up to the community to discuss whether or not I have a Pre. I am not interested in, nor will be privy, to the conversation. I have virtually no reason to ‘Troll’ as a couple of individuals have accused me of…indeed, the term was new to me. I’m not concerned with putting my company in jeopardy…it’s doing quite well, and only loosely related to this beta test and Twitter. I think that, being a customer, they’re hoping I purchase a dozen or so Pres for all of our technicians and staff, which is a reasonable marketing move.

I am, effective with the pressing of the SEND button on this message, ceasing to discuss my test experiences publicly. To those who were following my comments out of genuine curiosity, I apologise. If all I’ve heard from my acct. mgr, who IS a low-level employee, is true, you’ll get to experience the Pre yourself in a month…

Best wishes to you, Rob, for your continued success, and again, for your kind support.

Best regards,
Jim Van

PS- I can’t resistJ From what I’ve experienced, it’s far better than the Storm. It’ll be interesting to see whether the iPhone 3.0, with its drag and drop functionality, will compare favourably or exceed the Pre’s capabilities….

I can’t say that I blame him. We received several hateful emails saying how idiotic we were to believe him, I can only imagine the types of correspondence Jim was receiving. Covering and following tech is supposed to be FUN and while it’s fine to question the credibility of rumors, there is such a thing as going to far… especially when internet muscles are involved.

I can’t exactly “vouch” for Jim as I don’t know him personally. But from the research I’ve done, the little correspondence I’ve had with him and his decision to withdrawal from any type of community participation in regards to the Pre, he seems like a stand up guy with excitement he wanted to share, only to fall prey to the Twitter obsession of others.

You can see in the above Email that Jim thinks the Pre is much better than the Storm which I can’t say we were expecting anything equal or less. Why is it better than the BlackBery Storm? He answered that in another EMail:

Faster, more functional, and is VERY easy (thus far). Again, I wonder if the browser is actually the culprit with the Java issue, but won’t know until I play some more.

What “Java” issue is Jim talking about? Well, when we first started talking “Pre” with Jim:

One other comment: Thus far, I don’t think this thing is so hot at rendering Java. I used LogMeIn (java based remote app) to get into my PC to get into Twitter, and it took awhile. Ditto for my favourite crossword puzzle, which is also Java-powered. It’s kinda slow. I’m surprised, as this is rumoured to be sitting on top of a Linux OS…going 2 tinker with it later. Maybe it’s the browser?

So if the hopeful launch date is April 30th, they’ve still got 2 months that they could “internally” delay the Pre, fixing the Java rendering and still technically release on time. Even if the product DOESN’T launch on April 30th, it doesn’t say anything about the authenticity of Jim Van.

We choose to believe Jim because:

1. We want to believe Jim
2. We have no reason NOT to believe Jim

Whether or not his source is correct? That’s another question. I’m not sure we’ll hear from Jim again as he has chosen to remove himself from this public “dialogue”. But I only thought it fair to let our readers know this instead of never speaking Jim’s name again. I requested his permission before I published the above, so thank you to Jim, too.