Updated Rumor: A new report in the Chinese Newspaper Commercial Times, carried by Digitimes, claims that Palm Inc. has put in a significant order for "several models of smartphones" with the Asian mobile phone ODM company Compal Communications. The report goes on to state the ODM orders could likely top five million units in 2009.

Compal has also received ODM orders for several models of smartphones from Palm with the order volumes likely to top five million units, said the paper, noting that Palm's orders will be the growth driver for Compal in 2009.

iambic has released a new version of its YourCall software for Palm OS. YourCall works as a powerful call management system and communication enhancer. It provides a number of tools to help you capture your post-call dialogue and offers useful follow-up actions you can take after calls. According to iambic this update provides compatibility to the GSM based Palm Centro models, and carries along ongoing stability and functionality refinements.

YourCall v2.21 is available now with a free trial period. It starts at $14.95 for the Standard edition, which is focused on post call activities. The Professional edition, that takes the entire call experience (before, during and after) to a higher level, is $19.95.

For anyone who may have missed last week's Best Buy sales circular chock full of Palm goodness, this week's flyer brings about a handful of new offers. While there are no Palm handheld deals this time around, the Best Buy flyer from August 11th-17th contains a fresh round of Palm Centro sales along with a few accessory offers. As always, these deals may vary in availability or price from region to region.

Palm's popular new entry-level Centro is available in both GSM EDGE (aka Treo 685 on AT&T & unlocked) and CDMA EVDO (aka Treo 690 on Sprint and Verizon) flavors. Due to the omission of the full version of Pocket Tunes Deluxe and the lesser EDGE 2.5G radio within, AT&T's GSM version of the Centro is setting a trend for lower pricing than its CDMA brethren on Sprint and Verizon.

Just when the long-winded saga of the Treo 700p seemed to have become a distant memory, Palm has quietly released two new ROM updates for the Verizon version of the 700p and the Alltel 700wx.

Palm has quietly released a (presumably) final ROM radio update for the 700p, over two years after its release in May 2006. Bearing ROM version 1.11, this update is said to fix "…a phone reset issue that occurs under certain specific and rare conditions". Users running the original 700p 1.06 ROM will first need to update to 1.10 before running the separate standalone 1.11 installer. Both Hotsync & SD card-based versions of the installer routine are available for download. An Alltel-specific version of the update was made available in June.

The PalmInfocenter Software store is kicking off its largest sale event to date. Starting today and running all this week, we are offering the 25 Top-selling Palm OS applications on sale for $9.95 each.

This Mobile Heist includes some of the best selling and must have titles for Treo and Centro smartphones, each available for $9.95! That's an average discount of 42% with some as high as 67% off.

A few of the titles include: CallRec, Softick Audio Gateway, Astraware Casino, Ultimate Phone, Mundu IM and many more...

It's a new month, so that means that Hobbyist Software continues to crank out updates for its collection of Palm OS smartphone utilities. This time around, Hobbyist has released updates to their Butler utility (v4.92) and to the multi-function Phone Technician (v4.11) app. The exact changes are minimal and mostly comprise of assorted bugfixes. A fully detailed list noting all of the program changes can be found on the Hobbyist Software changelog.

Both apps are currently on sale in the software store.

Palm's new Treo 800w is the company's most feature-packed Treo ever. So despite running Windows Mobile 6.1, the 800w certainly stands to garner a fair share of former Palm OS users looking to upgrade to a more modern, full-featured device. But one of the major criticisms most users have with jumping ship to Windows Mobile from the Palm OS (or indeed, during any kind of OS switchover) is having to re-learn formerly instinctive, intuitive commands, shortcuts, and menus.

Via their ChannelSource reseller portal, Palm is attempting to mitigate some of the potential confusion brought about by the 800w's version of WM 6.1 (since to many users, "Palm" is still analogous to Palm OS) by posting a handy getting started guide online. This quick guide, although intended for resellers of Palm devices, makes for a nice overview of the moist basic functions of wi-fi networking, GPS navigation, Today screen contact navigation, and application launching.

Recent pricing activity suggests that the most recent Palm OS-based Treo may be heading out to pasture on yet another domestic CDMA carrier. This time, the Alltel network appears to be following in the footsteps of Verizon Wireless in clearing their remaining stocks of the Treo 755p.

While several unsubstantiated online reports predated the official confirmation by a Verizon Wireless spokesperson that they were phasing out the 755p, no reports have yet circulated regarding Alltel's future plans. Despite the lack of any official announcement, it stands to reason that Palm's newest Garnet-based device, the Centro, might be headed to Alltel's CDMA network in the near future.

The Investor's Business Daily newspaper has published one of the first interviews with Jeff Hawkins since the Foleo cancellation last year. In the article the IBD asks Hawkins about his views on the current netbook market and they also go into his experience with the Foleo and some of the reasons behind its non-introduction.

It was clear Foleo had technical issues. It was a first-generation product. We'd have to launch it and then do another gen within a year. And that's a big commitment of people and dollars.

It was a strategic decision to pursue a different approach. I don't think they made a mistake. We haven't seen the outcome of that decision yet. It really was not acrimonious at all. It was just business.

1src columnist Alan Grassia has posted a new piece entitled "Up In the Air" concerning the possible future plans of Palm not involving their Nova OS or their future hardware offerings. Grassia's piece makes for quite interesting reading in light of the recent MyPalm closure.

Grassia's piece begins with the suggestion that Palm may attempt to capture an Apple-sized bit of the online software market with a new Software Connection storefront, whether or not the new PocketGear management is onboard with Palm or not. With the arrival of nearly ubiquitous wireless 2.5G & 3G connectivity, as well as a more robust future version of the Palm OS, Palm may feel that the time is ripe to transition from a Hotsync-based software installations to OTA downloads and installers.

While seemingly having little uptake in the smartphone market, Access have now set their sights on the nascent Mobile Intent Device (MID) market. The company has just announced that the Access Linux Platform will ad support for the emerging MID format.

Larger than a classic PDA and even more portable than a "netbook", MID devices are a relatively new niche in the mobile computing market.They typically come in a tablet like form factor with larger screens optimized for browsing the web. Nokia has made some strides with its Internet Tablet series, and other tech heavyweights such as Microsoft, Intel and Ubuntu are also working on MID projects.