Palm (NSDQ: PALM) announced today that its much-anticipated phone the Pre will launch on Canada’s second largest carrier Bell Mobility in the second half of the year. Bell Mobility is the second carrier, and the first outside the US, to carry the Pre. Sprint (NYSE: S), the US’s third largest carrier, is to start selling the Pre in June. Reuters reports that UBS analyst Maynard Um said in a research note that the deal was good news to Palm investors, fretting over the dearth of carrier distribution deals for the Pre. But Um also said that “a larger and more prominent carrier would have been preferable” to Bell Mobility, which only has about 4.75 million contract customers.

Meanwhile, Palm seems intent on controlling every aspect of the Pre launch. Two weeks after word surfaced that Palm may be launching the Pre with only 375,000 units—a deliberately low number—in hopes that a shortage will stoke its desirability, comes the news that Sprint has fired three store employees after they discussed the Pre with people outside of the company, according to PreThinking.com, which notes that Sprint employees have to sign an NDA agreeing not to discuss the Pre with anyone on pain of firing. Still, as someone noted in the story’s comment section, wouldn’t it be counter-productive to fire someone for breaching an NDA right when you were trying to contain any possible information leaks?