The bad news, was pretty ugly.  Instead of turning in the $155 million in sales that the street expected, Palm put up a limp $85 to $90 million.  Times are tough, the Palm Treo Pro has had issues getting to market and the company hopes slack demand is sign of pent-up demand for the Pre.  Normally, I’d jump on companies for blaming their losses on pent-up demand, but in the case of the Pre, I’d bet there are a lot of the loyal Palm army holding off on replacements for the Pre.

This loss shows Palm burned through most of the money recently raised, about $100 million.  CEO Ed Colligan says expenses in developing the Pre and the webOS are putting a strain on company resources, but he sees a path forward in a successful Pre launch.  An awful lot is riding on this phone.

In its statement, Palm said they expect to defer some of the costs of R&D on the Pre over the two year life span or “products economic lifespan.“  It is safe to say that we’ll see the Pre on the market for a solid 24 months, something not even the mighty iPhone did.  Two years does seem like a longer than normal product cycle for a cell phone but I suspect the Pre2 will launch at the end of year one and they’ll fire sale the original model for the second year.

“The much-anticipated launch of the Palm Pre remains on track for the first half of calendar year 2009, but as expected we’ve got a difficult transition period to work through,” said Palm President and Chief Executive Officer Ed Colligan.