Palm Soars 35% As New Phone, OS Send Shorts Running

Shares of Palm ( PALM ) are up $1.57, or 35.3% this morning, at $6, and were up as much as 45% earlier, following yesterday’s unveiling of a better-than-expected WebOS operating system and a new handset, Pre, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Given that Palm had about a third of its shares sold short at last count, it’s not surprising decent news is being received spectacularly: Short sellers were expecting a monumental failure from Palm’s press conference, and the respectable new software and hardware has sent them running for cover. While impressed with technology, the big obvious drawback for most people today is the fact that the phone will be exclusive to struggling third-tier cellular operator Sprint ( S ). I guess you could look on the bright side: With Apple’s ( AAPL ) iPhone locked up at AT&T (DT), and the various new BlackBerries from Research in Motion ( RIMM ) sold to AT&T, Verizon Communications ( VZ ) and Deutsche Telekom’s ( DT ) T-Mobile, ... (link)