Palm - Place you bets

Palm, as you can see from that chart, is up huge year to date in anticipation of next month's launch of the new Palm Pre smartphone.

The chart tells you all you need to know about expectations for the thing. They're huge. I would bet a lot of money that one of these two other things happen:

• Dell buys them. The whole company, not the phones. Dell has cash and needs a boost. Lots of color over here.
• The Pre is a flop. Apple and Blackberrry have the market pretty well covered for business. Everyone else has some version for the student crowd.

A much better OS would go long way to tilt the odds but I haven't heard much detail on that of late. The Dell thing feels likely.