Analyst Amir Rozwadowski at Barclays Capital said that the much-awaited Palm Pre smartphone is well on its course for its scheduled early-June launch!

Making a foray into the fast-growing mobile and wireless market, the Pre will compete with the Apple iPhone and other smartphones. With Palm already riding on the apparent success of the Pre, Rozwadowski and his colleague, Jeff Kvaal, have raised their expected sales numbers for the soon-to-come smartphone from $1.4 billion to $1.9 billion, in the next fiscal beginning in June.

In a May 18 research note, Rozwadowski said: "Expect fairly solid initial demand and additional launches to potentially begin in the third quarter, thereby leading our PF annual sales [estimates] higher to $975m/$1.9b from $818m/$1.4b."

Mentioning the indications of an "on schedule" Pre launch, Rozwadowski also noted that "additional carrier launches" are likely to follow in the third quarter. Furthermore, there are also projections for additional WebOS product launches, though a lower-cost device might not make an appearance on the scene before 2010 first quarter.

With the Pre being hyped by some experts as a prospective "iPhone killer," it is expected to bring more than the required relief to its long-suffering maker, Palm. However, some pertinent issues with some of Palm's legacy products, and the Pre's launch-related increase in costs, might just drag on Palm's potential revenue and profitability.