Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) is dead. That has been written before, but now the company needs an official funeral mass. According to The New York Times, "Palm's chief executive, will announce the debut of a new smartphone primarily for business customers - the Treo Pro." The company also has several other handsets in development.

Palm is now up against smartphone products from much larger companies like Samsung and Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Not to mention the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone.

In the last year, Palm had an operating loss of $105 million on a shrinking revenue base that fell to $1.32 billion. The company has $398 million in current and long-term debt.

Palm is not going to make it as an operating company, but it might be a good licensing entity. That would involve cutting almost all of the company's staff and licensing its brand and product designs to another company, perhaps Samsung or LG. The Palm name still carries some modest weight in the U.S.

Palm's revenue might drop to $100 million, but its costs would be negligible. It would, at least, make a profit, which is something that is out of the question with the company in its current form.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

Palm (NASDAQ: PALM), the failing smartphone company, has launched a new version of its Treo handset. According to The Wall Street Journal, the new version of the product has newest Windows Mobile operating system, a GPS system and WiFi capability. It will run on the fast Sprint (NYSE: S) 3G network.

The new product is unlikely to help Palm, which trades at $5.42, down from a 52-week high of $19.23. For starters, the Treo will compete with another Sprint product, the well-regarded Samsung Instinct. The Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) 3G iPhone is even more formidable competition. The fact that it sold one million units in its first three days on the market sucks a lot of demand for other products out of the market. And, why not throw in the RIM (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry.

Palm lost money last quarter. More importantly, the average price of its phones dropped sharply. Selling more handsets only helps so much when the yield-per-units is low.

The Treo may be a good product, but it comes into a crowded field that is already dominated by a few, very well-financed companies with more attractive offerings.

Why would anyone think Palm's shares would rally.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

Many investors will say that the problems with the earnings report at Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) is that the company lost money and that revenue fell. That would be a naive view. The company's real trouble is that the amount it is getting per handset is falling sharply. Its newest product, the Centro, will not help because it is so inexpensive.

With the stock at $6, Palm's market cap is well below $1 billion. Its cash level has been falling and it only has about $250 million of liquid capital on its balance sheet.

Palm sold 968,000 handsets in the last quarter, up 29%. But revenue fell from $401 million to $296 million. That means that the yield-per-phone is so low that Palm may never be able to make money.

It the trend continues, Palm could be gone next year. According to Reuters, "slowing sales of older phones such as the Treo offset strong sales of its new, cheaper Centro phone."

That is a very, very bad trend.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com

"The more I look at Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and its new iPhone, the more I consider it to be, perhaps, the most innovative and transformative company in mobile computing today," notes wireless sector expert Nikhil Hutheesing.

The editor of The Forbes Wireless Stock Watch explains, "Put simply, iPhone is a game-changing product, and we are now making the case for investors to buy the stock."

"When Apple first announced its move into the wireless PDA business - in January 2007 when it introduced its iPhone - there was skepticism over whether it would be able to grab market share from incumbents like Research In Motion, which makes the BlackBerry smartphone and Palm which makes Treo handhelds.

"Nobody is doubting Apple today. Steve Jobs' iPhone is in the hands of over four million people and it is now the number two smartphone in the business with a 28% market share. It has surpassed Palm and is nipping at the heels of RIMM's BlackBerry.

"Until recently, iPhone, like Apple's Mac has been a fairly 'closed' universe. It was a great consumer device but it had little presence among large corporate users, the so-called enterprise market. That all changed in March.

This post is part of our Hottest Products of 2007 feature. Also check out our other Hottest Products of 2007 posts and let us know which product you think is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I was a reluctant BlackBerry purchaser earlier this year. Urged on by a change in email systems at work, I found I needed one to keep up with internal goings on. I planned to retain my trusty Treo 650 as my "main" handheld -- my one true smartphone -- and just use the BlackBerry occasionally as needed.

But oh, the lure of the "crackberry." I'm hooked! My old Treo 650 from Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) is starting to seem like R2D2 of Star Wars fame. It's still my trusted friend, but a little dated and not quite able to perform the heroics of my World Edition BlackBerry. Shares of Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM), maker of the BlackBerry, have surged this year from $42 to $107 in good part on its success with the 8800 series.

Most important for me, the BlackBerry updates automatically and doesn't need to be synced with my computer -- if a meeting is rescheduled, I can find out en route. It is lightning fast, and emails are all there waiting for me when I have a minute to check -- even on the subway where I can't get a signal.

Research-in-Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) has been a beast of a tech stock. But shares have run up so much and the valuations have risen so much that the stock NEEDS a breather. Shares are down roughly 3% at $95.50 today, after reaching over $100+ highs last week. Currently, RIM has a market cap north of $50 billion, its trailing P/E ratio is over 70, and it trades at roughly 42 times Feb-2008 fiscal earnings.

Just yesterday RIM received a downgrade from RBC Capital Markets' Mike Abramsky saying the current valuations and recent monster performance will make it hard for the stock to continue rising from here. His downgrade was from TOP PICK down to Outperform, which still isn't exactly a death sentence. Shares were down over 1% yesterday early on, but managed to close up $0.11 at $98.66 in such a strong market.

On Friday I noted how Research in Motion was one of the ten or so major "Windows Dressing" beneficiaries where fund managers and investment advisors want to show the stock in their holdings at the end of a quarter. These performed unbelievably well and RIM along with them, showing a 50% quarterly gain, to the point you'd never know we were all worried in August.

Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) seems to be a company with little direction these days. In the minds of many, the company that basically invented the popular smartphone market over four years ago with its Treo PDA/cellphone product has done little since that time in product innovation. As a result, competitors like Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), Research in Motion, Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) and Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) are now chomping heavily into Palm's core business of smartphone production.

When Palm acquired Handspring in 2003 and began setting the world ablaze with its Treo product, it was happy times for the company. The Treo line quickly became Palm's lifeblood as its PDA products (like the Palm Tungsten and Zire) continued selling in decreasing numbers. Those customers moved into smartphones, and the Treo was timed at the right moment to capture those folks.

Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM), the struggling smart-phone developer, announced yesterday that shareholders approved the company's transaction with Elevation Partners.

The deal calls for Palm to receive a $325 million investment from Elevation Partners and borrow up to $400 million in debt financing. The cash proceeds will be used to pay a fat $9 dividend to shareholders. Elevation will gain board seats as partners Fred Anderson, Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) former chief financial officer, and Roger McNamee, the long-time tech investor, will join the board. On their way out are directors Eric Benhamou and Scott Mercer.

Palm will also get Jonathan Rubinstein, the former head of Apple's iPod business, to become the new executive board chairman.

Palm pulled its new product initiative, Foleo, last week. Now it appears the device maker will try to outdo Apple by bringing Anderson and Rubinstein on board. However, the major ingredient that is still missing is that Apple has Jobs and Palm does not. Right now, Palm is a show-me stock -- show me the results before I jump into these shares.

InterDigital (NASDAQ: IDCC) volatility elevated as IDCC rallies off lows on contract win.

IDCC, a designer, developer and provider of wireless technologies, is recently up nearly 13% or $2.75 to $23.96. IDCC signed a seven-year licensing agreement with AAPL on 9/6/07. IDCC has customer licensing agreements with LG, NEC, Sharp, Panasonic, NOK & Sony-Ericsson. IDCC call option volume of 5,379 contracts compares to put volume of 222 contracts. IDCC September option implied volatility of 65 is above its 26-week average of 42 according to Track Data, suggesting non-directional price fluctuations.

Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) October volatility elevated into early October EPS.

PALM is recently down $0.25 to $15.32. PALM is expected to announce EPS on 10/1. PALM is developing a new handset operating system for its Treo product line. The new operating system is expected to be out in late 2008. PALM announced a strategic recapitalization with Elevation Partners on 6/4/07. PALM option implied volatility of 47 is above its 26-week average of 38 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (NYSE: KKD) volatility elevated as KKD trades near historic lows.

KKD operates and franchises 300 doughnut shops with over $450 million in revenue. KKD is down over 27% $1.73 to $4.60. CIBC says, "downgrading to Sector Underperform from Sector Performer on Flagging sales and liquidity concerns." KKD call option volume of 682 contracts compares to put volume of 1,465 contracts. KKD October option implied volatility of 69 is above its 26-week average of 45 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

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

Palm Inc (NASDAQ: PALM), the California-based smartphone developer, has pulled its recently released Foleo product line, as it had turned out to be a big flop.

Now investors need to ask how they are going to make money in this stock. Is selling out to Motorola Inc (NYSE: MOT) or another handset manufacturer the only way? Despite a reasonably passionate following by Treo users, with many claiming the merits of the Palm produced device over that of the Blackberry produced by Research-in-Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM), Treo just has not gotten enough of a following, as it failed to take the enterprise approach that Research-in-Motion took.

Further, as functionality improves and wireless networks are able to handle more capacity, low-end devices will be able to better handle data, making it even more difficult for Palm to bring new products to market.

All told, Palm is looking more like a value trap than a value stock. While management has done an excellent job improving its balance sheet and increasing its cash generation, this is one company that is now in desperate need of a new product, which looks like it could take a while. If you are buying Palm, you are betting on a buyout at this stage of the game.

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).

When Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) announced its new Foleo (with a little horizontal line over the "e") at the D conference last week, we all let out a collective, huh? It's not that the Foleo isn't cool -- it is, a little -- or useful -- a bit. But the Foleo, which will be available sometime this summer, has way to many huh moments.

Here's a rundown:

What is it? The Foleo is, essentially, a laptop extension for your Palm Treo. It's based on open-source Linux software (score one cool point), and as such, software is easy to build for it, and it will operate much faster than your actual laptop. Instead of opening and waiting for the usual several minutes of start-up-and-warm-up-and-log-in, the thing just turns on, instantly, and presto! e-mail. (Score another cool point, and a usefulness point.) It's small, it has a keyboard and a couple of ports (headphone jack, USB port, etc), but doesn't require plugging into your Treo (score one usefulness point).

How much? The Foleo is $599 with a $100 mail-in rebate, which (let's be honest) most consumers won't jump through the hoops necessary to reclaim. $599. You also must have a Treo already, ranging from $49 to $699 depending on the version and service plan you sign up for at time of purchase, for a total of at least $649.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) just recently launched its Google Calendar for mobile phone usage (as of last week). Sounds pretty boring, right? Well, to most of us, it is. Google, however, sees the future of where people will be getting information from, and it's not the PC. You see, there are quite a few more mobile phones on the planet these days than PCs, and in more markets (except the U.S., yet), customers are using those nice, color mobile screens and higher-speed cellular networks to check e-mail and browse information (not necessarily websites). As such, Google knows that getting its brand in front of customers in that arena is a key move to its future.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) has not sat still either. "Yahoo! Go" is now being downloaded to cellphones, Treos and BlackBerrys in large amounts, putting the entire Yahoo! portal in front of millions of wireless phone subscribers who still need Yahoo!'s services when away from a laptop or other PC. Similarly, Google Calendar for mobile phones is yet another example of the company making many of its products available for cellphone use.

This is significant because as Google customers begin using its services on those hundreds of millions of phones, Google's advertising finesse could, at some point, reap even more revenue from mobile customers. Google already is playing with mobile advertising and if it can recreate (even partially) the success of its online advertising in the mobile phone space, another mold will be broken. In fact, it will be interesting to see if the same kind of battle will shape up between Google and Yahoo! on the mobile phone screen as has happened on the PC screen.

Heading to Memorial Day, there's certainly no moratorium on the number of talked about potential deals. Receiving a fair amount of attention over the last few days include the companies below. There's more, of course, but hey, it's a three-day weekend.

LAM RESEARCH CORPORATION (NASDAQ: LRCX)

This supplier of tools that makes microchips keeps seeing its stock move up. Up about 13% over the last few months. And it may be more than speculation that it will soon be acquired. Investors looking for a deal are snapping up equity calls, some are then selling them, and keeping both eyes on the stock price. Others are looking out to see which private equity firms or "strategic" buyers come calling.

AMDOCS LIMITED (NYSE: DOX)

As Alltel Corporation (NYSE: AT) goes, so goes Amdocs? Well, not quite. Yes the Alltel sale has pushed Amdocs' stock upward. Some say this maker of software products for telecom services firms may want to continue to go forward by themselves. But that hasn't stopped that list of potential buyers from being passed around. Best bet: International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM).

CIRCUIT CITY STORES (NYSE: CC)

Again, here we go: Is it going to take a buyout? (Read: private equity buyer.) Or a miracle? (Read: new management) There are profit warnings. (Read: red flags everywhere) The stock is in miserable shape. (Read: cheap) Tough competition. (Read: Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE: WMT)). Think there's a book to be written about all of this? (Read: who'd want to?).

APPLEBEE'S INTERNATIONAL INC (NASDAQ: APPB)

Food for thought. Kangaroo Holdings wants to buy OSI Restaurant Partners Inc (NYSE: OSI). Not surprisingly, Applebee's stock goes up. Are they cooking up a sale price for themselves as they "evaluate" offers? You betcha.

PALM INC (NASDAQ: PALM)

Going, going...almost gone. Even we're beginning to tire of this one. But it never gets old if you like to watch. Now, they're canceling conferences. The CEO is selling shares. The CFO has a bad back. Come on! The latest product review - Palm Treo 755p - is terrible. Market share is going down the tubes. R&D? Forgetaboutit. Sound like a company on the go? Right. Right into someone else's lap. And to think what they once were. Great job all around, everybody.

Many would concede that analysts have been under an "iPhone spell," attempting to figure out what impact the upcoming mobile device from Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) could have on wireless devices and handsets from Palm Inc (NASDAQ: PALM) and Research in Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM). What they may soon have to consider is what impact a rumored phone from Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) could have on the iPhone.

The Google phone, perhaps a joint effort with Samsung, could look like RIMM's BlackBerry with more Internet capabilities and could be code-named "Switch." Google could also be working with telecom giant Orange and High Tech Computer Corp - which DigiTimes.com reported was working on manufacturing Google handsets - to build a mobile phone with Google software and could perhaps go on sale in 2008.

A post on a blog written by Don Dodge, director of business development for Microsoft Corporation's (NASDAQ: MSFT) emerging business team, quoted Simeon Simeonov, former CTO of Allaire Corp, on what he feels could be Google's "go-to" market strategy for a phone: "Apparently, Google is planning to build distribution relationships with multiple carriers by allowing them to minimize subscription and marketing costs. In other words, Google will market the phone online and carriers will fulfill."

With the iPhone, Apple has promised customers a "new era" of media and information, but their no-third-party-software-allowed policy doesn't appear to bring an "open Internet" way of thinking to a device. Should Google go forward with this market strategy, it could really re-invent this type of device, which could be, essentially, a handheld computer, and blow Apple out of the water.

Someone in the mobile industry needs to start thinking "outside the box," and with Google's recent advances in areas like voice search technology and other applications, it might end up being the company to do just that. Even if, as some speculate, Google is investing in only the software side of things, it appears that it has many of the resources needed to reshape the industry.

Then again, on the news that Apple and Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CSCO) are looking to work together to make Apple's device compatible with Cisco's business and consumer equipment, as reported by Apple Insider, maybe Apple has some tricks left up its sleeves. Either way, a competition between the two should be interesting, to say the least.