14 DAY TRIAL // Palm's OS 5, which has now reached the very honorable age of six years since it was first released, finally seems about to get the chance at being “discharged,” now that Palm has sent out invitations to journalists to be prepared for the first preview of the new operating system at CES 2009.
This launch, which was postponed for about a year and some change since it was first announced in October 2007, could mean one of the best actions Palm could take at the present time, since the company is not having its best financial moment.
Avi Cohen of Avian Securities wrote in a research note that, "With Palm management reiterating in recent months that the new Palm OS would be completed by calendar year-end 2008, speculation is likely to be that this will be the venue for the formal introduction of the new next gen OS. [...] Given the timing of the event and the scale of the venue (CES), we would agree with this notion."
Returning to the main idea, although the company is also said to be releasing its new smartphone at the Consumer Electronics Show as well, because of its current economic situation, many are reluctant to be confident in such claims. That is a fair and logical way of judging the facts, should we make a comparison between Palm's first quarter revenue, of $366.9 million, and its second one of only $190-195 million. The reasonable opinion at this point would be that a company whose revenue drop was of ~93% might not have the financial power to launch a new smartphone until things improved.
In any case, Cohen made certain allegations on this subject as well, saying, "Working backwards, we believe this requires that the device enter carrier testing sometime between now and late February at the latest. [...] We believe the roll-out of the new smartphone will follow a similar pattern to that of the Centro, with initial carrier exclusivity in the U.S. (~3 months) before rolling out to other U.S. and international carriers."