Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM), the dazed and confused mobile smartphone manufacturer, released Q2 numbers yesterday after the market's close, showing an expected loss for its most recent quarter. The company saw a $9.63 million loss ($0.09 per share) on quarterly revenues of just over $349 million as smartphone competitors, higher than expected warranty costs and shipping delays all influenced the company's performance. In the year-ago quarter, Palm made a net profit of $12.77 million on just over $392 in revenue.

And it gets worse, as Palm gave dismal guidance for the quarter in progress. The once-giant handheld PDA company admitted to seeing losses in the range of $30 million ($0.31 per share) for the current quarter on revenue expectations of $310 million to $320 million. Investors understandably did not like what they heard, driving down Palm's share price from Tuesday's close of $5.93 to $5.35 in after-hours trading.

What's next for Palm? After starting to sell the lower-price Palm Centro (a $99 smartphone) in its Q2 period and canceling the Foleo miniature notebook portable computer (if that's what it was), the company's CEO, Ed Colligan, has some shoring up to do or he'll be skating on thin ice in 2008. Wait, he already is. Stating that "It's a transformational time so things could be a bit lumpy, but we'll do our best to manage through that," Colligan must make some radical moves in 2008 or be shown the door. Investors aren't patient when it comes to one disappointing quarter after another in an industry expected to continue growth for the next several years.

Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) is expected to report EPS after the close on 10/4.

• American Technology Research said on 9/26 "we see RIMM delivering on high expectations; Stock gains are warranted."
  
• RIMM October option implied volatility is at 71, November is at 59 and December is at 56; above its 26-week average of 43 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

Daily options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

I like to call them "superphones" but the industry phrase is "smart phones," and the best of the bunch still exist in our collective imagination and in sparkling light-on-black press photos on the internet: the Apple iPhone (due out June 29), the LG Prada ("late summer") and the Foleo, a companion to the Palm Treo (more "late summer").

While many of the details are known, of course, I haven't actually touched any of these superphones. But that's part of the deliciousness. I can already tell you which one I want to have in my big purple knitted bag immediately (the iPhone) and which I'm fine admiring from afar, and on the cover of US Magazine (LG Prada) and which I might only buy if I was far more idle and in possession of way more disposable income than I now have (Palm Foleo).

Are you an email addict? That's a hard term to describe for many, but with so much business and inter-company (and personal) communications coming in and going out in the form of email these days, there are probably millions -- tens of millions -- of email addicts in the U.S. alone. The thing is, they don't even know it.

Email is a nice way to communicate since it does not put people on the spot like a phone call or a meeting does. We can respond at our leisure, and we can read and compose at our leisure too. But, I've seen countless folks who have some kind of personal "time limit" on responding to an email, as if there is some hidden challenge or something. That's one of the signs of email addiction.

Another sign? The RIM Blackberry and Palm Treo. Business users advocate that these devices make them more productive since they can conduct email business anywhere they are. This is true and these devices are true time-savers in every respect. What happens, though, is that email never, ever leaves you -- and that's a bad, bad thing in my opinion. There is time for business and time for not being interrupted. Yet, with email on our hip 24/7, are we creating a nation of email addicts? That's still up for debate. But can you hit the "delete" key on your email lifestyle, if just for a short while?

After reading gobs and gobs of information over the last few days on the Apple, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AApl) iPhone (which has captured my attention like much of the press), I can't help but be awed by what that company has done. Not, not in terms of technology nor customer friendliness -- although those are apparent like with anything Apple does -- but by the impact this device may have on both the mobile phone manufacturing segment as well as the mobile phone carrier business.

After all, only Cingular Wireless, which is soon to be AT&T, Inc. (NYSE:T), will get this phone during the "exclusivity" period. Will carriers like Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ), Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S), Alltel Corporation (NYSE:AT), and T-Mobile suffer? From many accounts, they will. I'm not sure how to estimate the wireless customers who will "jump ship" to Cingular just to buy the iPhone, but it won't be small at all most likely.