Analysts opine that with Palm sending out invitations to an event at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) week, the stage seems to be set for the launch of the company’s next-generation operating system in January. The system “Nova”, which has been delayed several times, is crucial to the company’s chances of regaining a foothold in the mobile computing market.

The invitation that Palm sent out to journalists read: “Come to CES to see all the Palm New-ness you’ve been waiting for.” 

Nova is not expected to appear on devices until later in 2009, and few details have emerged as to what Palm has up its sleeve. Nevertheless, this next-generation operating system, based on Linux, is expected to bring the Palm-branded operating system into the modern era of computing. It might reverse Palm’s decline as a mobile computing innovator, which began after its 2003 decision to separate into two companies - Palmsource that developed the operating system, and Palm that developed the hardware.

Avi Cohen, of Avian Securities, wrote in a research note on Thursday: “With Palm management reiterating in recent months that the new Palm OS would be completed by calendar year-end 2008, speculation is likely to be that this will be the venue for the formal introduction of the new next gen OS. Given the timing of the event and the scale of the venue (CES), we would agree with this notion.”

In addition, Cohen speculated that, at the show, Palm could also preannounce its next smartphone, which it expects to launch during the first half of 2009. Chen added that such an announcement would require that the device enters carrier testing sometime between now and late February.