"Sometimes the tiniest adjustment can make a huge difference. A tenth of a grade-point average could get you into Princeton. A bid $1 higher could win on eBay. And a half-step toward the cliff edge could — well, you know.

That must be what Palm was thinking when it unveiled the Centro, its new keyboard-equipped cellphone. It’s almost identical to the company’s popular Treo smartphone, but a little smaller and cheaper.

Palm hoped that by trimming the Treo’s size and price, it would create a totally different product, a new crossover phone for people who have never before owned phones with alphabet keys. (By Palm’s reckoning, that’s 95 percent of cellphone buyers.)

But here’s the funny thing: the strategy works."