Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) today announced that Elevation Partners has agreed to make an additional $100 million equity investment in Palm. Under a definitive agreement reached today, Elevation will increase its investment in Palm by acquiring newly issued Series C preferred stock that is convertible into Palm common stock at a price of $3.25 per share, a 31 percent premium to the closing price of Palm common stock on Dec. 19, 2008. The Series C preferred stock carries a 0% dividend rate. Elevation will also receive warrants to acquire 7 million shares of Palm common stock at the same price. Prior to March 31, 2009, Palm may elect to cause Elevation to sell up to $49 million of this new investment to other investors on the same or better terms than on which Elevation invested.

"The additional capital from Elevation Partners will enable us to put added momentum behind the new product introductions scheduled for 2009 and will provide us with enhanced stability in unsettled economic times," said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer of Palm, Inc. "Elevation has been a great partner to Palm, and we appreciate their continued confidence and support."

"We believe that Palm is in a position to transform the cell phone industry, and we are pleased to have the opportunity to make this additional investment in the company. Palm has an industry-leading team and an exciting, differentiated product roadmap. We are proud to be associated with the company and look forward to great things from Palm in 2009 and beyond," stated Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners.
 
The transaction is expected to close by Jan. 31, 2009, subject to customary closing conditions.

UPDATE: Take a look at the image in this article- the stockmarket has reacted positively to this news. Thanks to kaptain korolev.

From Clemens- "Thanks to your support to lead your readers to the PUGcast's December poll with regard to Palm's CES announcement of the new operating system as well as mindblowing devices, we were facing a high participation and have produced very interesting results.

I would like to give you and your readers some feedback, which I believe is a very interesting interpretation of the votes all of you have given.

More than half of the participants will postpone investments of Chistmas shopping, due to Palm's announcement to present something mindblowing at CES in January 2009. About one fourth stays with what they have and trust: PalmOS as it is. The minority  of 16 % doesn't care about Palm any longer and is most likely with any of the other platforms already, such as iPhone, Windows Mobile and Symbian just to mention the most important challengers. All in all, very interesting results, I guess.

Read more details on what users would buy for Christmas:
http://pugcaster.vox.com/library/post/summary-of-polls-strong-lobby-for-palm.html

Remember: The poll is still open and in case you haven't voted so far you can make the numbers even more precise by participating."