With competition heating up from rivals Research In Motion (RIM), Motorola, OEM HTC, and even worldwide leader Nokia (generally not a major player in North America), the days when Palm, Inc. could count on the Treo's dominance of the American smartphone market boosting earnings appear to be over. For the second quarter in a row, the handheld-maker has reported disappointing preliminary results.

Back in June, Palm lowered its guidance for this quarter below analyst expectations to between $380 million and $385 million. This week, the company said earnings for the quarter that ended on September 1st would fall between $354 million to $356 million, well off the predicted mark.

This news sent Palm shares down nearly 8 percent.

The reason for the reduced earnings: Lower Treo volumes in carrier retail channels. This despite the release of two new models in the U.S., the Windows Mobile Treo 700w and Palm OS 700p from CDMA carriers Verizon and Sprint, which just started offering a version of the 700w as the 700wx with more memory this week. And the continued availability of the Treo 600/650 models from a number of operators at lower prices.

One problem facing Palm is that its latest devices look very similar to the older models and are quite a bit more expensive, one to two hundred dollars more, than rivals' new smartphones, such as Motorola's Q and RIM's just announced (and sleek ) Pearl.

Palm isn't about to stand still, however. In a statement, company president & CEO Ed Colligan said: "We will soon address the market dynamics responsible for our first quarter revenue shortfall with two major product launches, one that improves our pricing position and both which extend our carrier relationships to global markets."

Palm's partnership with Vodafone to soon deliver the Windows Mobile-based Treo 750v, the first GSM model with 3G, in Europe would be the aspect of that statement meant to address worldwide availability. Due to ship later this month, it is also the first Treo, among other things, that drops the vestigial antenna common to all past models, perhaps taking Palm a little bit out of its design rut. The color scheme of the keys is a little different as well. This model will most likely find its way to Cingular later in the year.

The second device Colligan could be referring to is the long-rumored about Palm OS Treo code-named Nitro, which first appeared in a Cingular Wireless roadmap leaked in June. This is supposed to be a low-cost smartphone for GSM carriers that nonetheless may even have Wi-Fi, and look somewhat different from current Treo models.

Leaked images of Nitro show an SD card slot on the right side of the unit, a unique position for a Treo. Some wonder if that was done to make room for the integrated Wi-Fi.

It supposedly has 64 MB of RAM, about the same amout as a Treo 650, runs on a slightly more advanced version of the Palm platform than that earlier model (5.49106 to 5.40017), and has a keyboard layout similar to the newer 700p.

Reports say Nitro integrates only a .3 megapixel camera, the same as the Treo 650 but far less lower in resolutoin than newer models. Its battery is a lighter yet less powerful 1200 mAh type compared to the 650's 1800 mAh.