At CES this month, Palm announced the Palm Pre, which was the toast of the Consumer Electronics Association (CES) 2009 conference. It even got some “Best in Show” awards. This is quite good news for Palm as a company – they have been limping along for a while now.

So what is the Palm Pre? (Or pre-what is the Palm Pre?). Some people would be inclined to write it off as another touchscreen iPhone wannabe. They would do well to remember that it comes from a company that has been making touchscreen devices for over a decade, and touchscreen smartphones for over five years. The main difference is that Palm’s products up until now required a stylus to use the touchscreen (or the navigation key on the smartphones).

The Pre initially looks like a relatively elegant touchscreen device. The hardware keyboard is kept out of sight until you need it. For pictures of the Pre and a review, see CNET’s First impressions: Palm Pre.

The Palm Pre runs on what Palm calls Web OS, which is the first device with a new OS which Palm has brought out since Palm OS 5.0 in June 2002. Web OS (or “palm webOS”) according to this Wikipedia article is “is designed for use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface” and runs on Linux.

Palm had some success last year with the Palm Centro, which was its smallest smart phone offered to date. It needs the Pre to be an even bigger success.