Palm Needs a Much Stronger Signal

LAS VEGAS (TheStreet) -- It's another new dawn for Palm (PALM). The company announced a relaunch of its Pre and Pixi phones late Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Verizon (VZ), the No. 1 U.S. carrier, will start selling the revamped Palm smartphones on Jan.25, said Palm during its CES presentation.

Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein unveiled new smartphones at CES

Forgive the deja vu, but Palm's latest breakthrough moment comes exactly a year after its last big one, when the up-from-the-ashes tech shop, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., announced the Pre phone at the same venue.

This time, it's much different, of course. Instead of an exclusive deal with flailing No. 3 carrier Sprint (S), Palm's got Verizon in a special pact, though AT&T (T) claimed Tuesday that it too will start selling Palm's phones by midyear.

One new development is that the Palm phones will have a "hotspot" feature that will share up to five Wi-Fi connections with nearby devices, similar to the Mi-Fi offering from Verizon.

"Today's significant carrier agreements and innovations are clear signposts towards Palm's successful turnaround," RBC analyst Mike Abramsky wrote in a research note Friday.

Palm Pre/Pixi Plus smartphones for Verizon

Palm shares jumped 11% Friday as investors cheered the news.

The confirmation of the Verizon partnership could put to rest concerns that Verizon was less than enthusiastic about adding the slow-selling Palm lineup to its roster.

As TheStreet first reported in September, Verizon was almost single-mindedly focused on the debut of its new Google (GOOG) Android phone, the Motorola (MOT) Droid. At the time, Verizon had its hands full with new BlackBerries from Research In Motion (RIMM) and a $100 million ad campaign for the Droid.