Both wireless carriers and software developers are already holding devices with the new Palm "Nova" OS, Palm chief executive Ed Colligan revealed in a financial earnings conference call yesterday.

Speaking with financial analysts, Colligan aggressively promoted the new Nova platform, saying that it would play a major role in returning the company to profitability in fiscal 2010.

"Our first next generation phone is set for launch in the first half of calendar year 2009 as planned," Colligan said. "It's early in this space, and there's an enormous amount of opportunity left" for new handheld OS and device entrants, he said.

Palm is widely expected to announce Nova and the first Nova devices on Thursday, January 8 at the CES trade show, though the company hasn't officially confirmed that date.

Palm has been "extremely pleased at [the] positive reaction" it has seen from carrier partners when showing them the new platform, Colligan said. The company has also brought some existing software developers into the fold, to make sure the new platform launches with third-party software already available, he said.

"There are existing developers that we've briefed; we want to make sure that we have a robust set of applications as we launch the product, but we haven't made it a broad-based thing at this time," Colligan said.

Palm will also continue to develop Windows Mobile products, Colligan said. The new OS will be targeted more towards consumer applications, where "Windows Mobile will continue to be our platform of choice for enterprise devices."

Colligan also said that the Palm Treo Pro, currently available through limited AT&T and T-Mobile channels, will be launched "in partnership with a major U.S. carrier" over the next quarter.

It also sounded like Palm won't have any upgrades for the existing Centro or their PDA lines, which include the Z22, E2 and T|X models. Apart from new Nova devices, Palm will focus on refreshing and expanding the Treo Pro line, Colligan said. The company will continue to sell PDAs, but not make any new ones, he said.

"We will push those out into the marketplace as long as there is sufficient demand ... we're not developing new ones, so there's an inevitable end, but I think that right now we're playing it out," Colligan said. "We're going to continue to sell them as long as there is demand for those products."