Verizon’s Palm Pre and Pixi Prices Officially INSAAAAAAANE!

Verizon has a solution to Palm’s (PALM) daunting inventory problems: Dramatic price cuts on the company’s webOS smartphones.

The carrier is now selling the Pre Plus, which debuted on its network in late January at $149.99, for $49.99. And the company has dropped the price of the Pixi Plus to $29.99 from $99.99.

Substantial discounts, even more so because Verizon (VZ) is offering a buy one/get one free deal for both devices. And, on top of that, the carrier is now offering its Mobile Hotspot service, which transforms the smartphones into Mi-Fi-style hotspots for free.

Inventory purge, anyone?