Palm Inc. saw its shares slip around 3.5 percent after it posted results for the quarter ended Aug. 31, even though they were in-line with a pre-announcement given last month. The drop was mostly due to the weak outlook for this quarter. Palm reported a net loss of $841,000, or 1 cent a share, for the quarter ended Aug. 31 and said revenue for the current quarter is expected to come in between $370 million and $380 million, less than what analysts have predicted.

The company had a profit of $16.5 million, or 16 cents a share, a year earlier. However, in the meantime, RIM's Blackberry and Apple's iPhone, have overshadowed Palm's Treo. Also, Apple's designated U.S. iPhone provider, AT&T, is Palm's distributor of Treos.

A week ago, Palm announced its latest phone, Centro. This latest tech wonder is the smallest and lightest Palm phone to date, but it seems to be a very powerful tool thanks to its multiple features and capabilities. The phone It measures 4.2 inches high, 2.1 inches wide, and 0.7 inch thick, and it weighs a mere 4.2 ounces. Expected mid-October, the Palm Centro smart device will be available in onyx black or ruby red from all Sprint sales channels, Palm stores and online at www.sprint.com and www.palm.com/centro.

Palm Centro is powered by an XScale processor and it comes equipped with 128MB of ROM and 64MB of user-accessible RAM. Of course the storage capacity can be expanded through its SD card slot, which can handle cards up to 4 GB. Centro has a touch screen capable to display 64K colors at 320 X 320 pixels and it integrates also a 1.3 Megapixel camera with 2X digital zoom that can handle video. According to Palm, Centro’s battery offers 3.5 hours of talk time.

In June, smartphone maker Palm announced the selling of a quarter of its shares to the private equity firm Elevation for 325 million dollars. As part of the deal, Elevation appointed Jon Rubinstein, former head of the iPod division at Apple, as Palm's executive chairman. Fred Anderson, the former chief financial officer of Apple also joined the Palm board. Two long time Palm board members, former chief executive Eric Benhamou and Scott Mercer, have resigned.

The deal marked the biggest ever investment by Elevation, which counts Anderson and U2 rock star Bono among its principal partners.

Palm is best known for the Treo line of phones, but is also credited with the first popular handheld computing device the Palm Pilot. The move comes as Palm's smartphones are facing increased pressure from competitors like RIM, Nokia and Apple itself, which is set to launch its hotly-awaited iPhone on June 29.