Seems like Telefonica’s got the chance to strike back. While Vodafone managed to snitch the iPhone, the Spanish newspaper Expansion says that the new major player in the world of smartphones, the Palm Pre, will most likely be exclusively offered by Telefonica’s Movistar in Spain, as well as in many Latin American countries. In addition, Telefonica’s subsidiary, O2, will get it within UK territory, which will also come as an equalizer, since Vodafone has already got the Android-powered HTC Magic on the island.

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Our hunger for the Palm Pre is unsatisfiable, and while we are still waiting for its official roll out (hopefully, in the second quarter of the year), at least we’ll get the chance to check it out once again in the Upcoming Webcast event with David Owens, Director of Consumer Acuisitions for Sprint, and Matt Crowley, Product Line Manager at Palm. It’s not clear if the officials will be showing off some new Pre abilities, but we know that we’ll see it run on Sprint’s 3G network for sure. The event is scheduled for today (March 12) at 2PM Eastern Time. Stay with us for our live report of the event, which will actually consist of a 20-minute presentation and 20 minutes more for Q&A.

Oh, guess who was the biggest star at Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night show? It was the webOS-powered Palm Pre of course! Engadget’s Joshua Topolsky demoed the key features of one (multi tasking, keyboard, you know) and the sexy (but costy) touchstone, for wireless charging. Of course, every body loved it… Check out the video below.

Only the strong shall survive in this gloomy economy and it looks like Palm is going to do everything it can to stay afloat until the release of the Pre and the webOS system. Companies cannot continue their operating efforts without a solid flow of capital to sustain the business. In an attempt to gain more capital before it comes out, Palm is exercising its right to remarket shares held by private equity firm Elevation Partners. It looks like 18.5 million shares of its common stock, worth $105 million, will be remarketed to help pay off $49 million they owe Elevation Partners. Once that is taken care of, any net proceeds will go directly to strengthen Palm’s capital position for the inevitable launch of the Pre. It’s do or die now for the pioneering company, but we are sure that the new operating system and phones will bring them back to the top. 

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Palm announced its preliminary results about the Q3 of fiscal year 2009, resulting in $85-90 mln revenues and $95-110 mln of used cash, or $5-25 mln loss. The reasons – the old Palm OS, the late launch of the Treo Pro and the global economy problems.  However,  Palm is still expected to have $215-220 mln, which should be enough to keep the company until the webOS based Pre launches “during the first half of the calendar year” and bring huge revenues. I’ll have my fingers crossed for you, Palm!

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