Investors love affair with Palm earlier this year has come to a head with the fiscal first-quarter earnings report released by Palm today. There has been serious debates, ahead of the earnings report, over how many Pre phones have been actually sold in the first full quarter of availability. Now we have the full story and it was better than expected.

Palm, Inc. reported that total revenues in the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, ended Aug. 28, 2009, were $68.0 million. Gross profit was a total $2.8 million, and gross margin was 4.1 percent. These results include the effects of subscription accounting applied to Palm webOS products as required by GAAP standards. In accordance with this methodology, revenues and direct cost of revenues for Palm webOS products currently Palm Pre, are deferred and recognized over the product's estimated economic life.

Palm shipped a total of 823,000 smartphone units during the quarter, representing a 134 percent increase from the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009 and a year-over-year decrease of 30 percent. Smartphone sell-through for the quarter was 810,000 units, up 76 percent from the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009 and down 21 percent year-over-year.

Palm, Inc. also announced that it intends to offer, subject to market and other conditions, approximately 16 million shares of common stock. In connection with this offering, the underwriters will have an option to purchase up to an additional 2.4 million shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.

The company plans to use the net proceeds for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Elevation Partners has indicated its intention to buy $35 million of Palm shares in the offering, at the public offering price.

Although Palm reported a deeper net loss on a drop in revenue for its first fiscal quarter,  sales of the company's smartphones jumped from the previous period, thanks to the launch of the new Pre.

From Pilot to Pre: Palm's history

1992 Founded by tablet computing pioneer Jeff Hawkins, who joined forces with former Apple software sales boss Donna Dubinsky and Ed Colligan, head of marketing with Radius (another Apple spin-off).

1993 Produced in cooperation with Casio and Tandy, the company's first device, the Zoomer PDA, is a flop - but Palm keeps itself afloat by selling software to Hewlett Packard and Apple.

1995 The company decides to take full control of hardware, software and sales, but struggles to find the cash required to make progress. Eventually, Palm is acquired by US Robotics for $47m.

1996 First Palm Pilot is released. After a slow start, it turns into a success - shifting more than 1m units after 18 months.

1997 US Robotics is in turn acquired by 3Com in a $6.6bn merger.

1998 Unhappy at 3Com's refusal to spin off Palm as a separate company, the trio of founders quit to form a new PDA manufacturer called Handspring.

2000 3Com spins off Palm as a separate company at the height of the dotcom boom, placing its value at around $54bn.

2001 The dotcom crash wipes around 90% of Palm's value.

2002 The company begins to spin off its software unit as PalmSource.

2003 In a deal worth around $170m, Palm's hardware business merges with Handspring, the rival formed by its disgruntled founders back in 1998. PalmSource is spun off completely, and later acquired by software maker ACCESS for $324m.

2006 Now a hardware-only business, Palm begins making handsets using Windows Mobile. By the end of the year, it buys back the rights to use PalmSource software from ACCESS for $44m.

2007 Private equity investment group Elevation Partners buys a quarter of Palm for $325m. Former Apple executive Jon Rubinstein - who oversaw development of the iPod - is brought in as chairman.

2008 Elevation invests a further $100m into the company, which then announces that it will stop making dedicated PDAs and focus only on mobile phones.

2009 The company unveils the Pre in January, which then goes on sale in America in June and sells more than 100,000 units in the first week. Rubinstein is named chief executive, replacing Ed Colligan.