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It's been a long time coming, but Palm's new smartphone, the Pre, finally made its debut in the United States last Saturday. It's been touted as the next, ho-hum, "iPhone killer," and it does hold several features that can give Apple a run for its money. But did the people believe the hype?

Only to a certain extent. No one expected the Pre to command those long lines of buyers that the iPhone 3G generated last year, but sales were definitely brisker than expected. Buyers didn't camp out, but many stores sold out all their Palm Pres before closing hour. It seems people really have been waiting for the Pre for a while.

The Pre has a more flexible software foundation, which is one of the sore points of the iPhone and other smartphones. If sales continue to be good over the next few months, it's probable that Palm will come up with even more innovative and useful tweaks to their OS, making the Pre even more  of an, ho-hum, "iPhone killer."

But I highly doubt Palm will break into the smartphone sales race just yet, especially since it's only tied to one carrier at the moment. It needs to expand commercially before it can hold a candle to the iPhone, so this is one issue I'll be watching over the next few weeks.

Palm isn't the only company that's hinging on the Pre's success. Sprint, the telecommunications company, has also been hurt by customer defections (Remember, Palm used to be the leader in handheld devices, too) and a damaged reputation, is leaning on the Pre's good performance for its survival. Think of all those people crossing their fingers!

The Pre's debut finally puts a long wait to an end, but I tend to wonder whether Palm waited too long to roll it out. Only a week from now, Apple is set to announce the next iPhone. Rumors are already flying around about what it's going to be like -- there's talk of a 4GB entry-level iPhone, and even a 32GB video iPhone.

If Apple rumors are enough to drown out the Palm Pre's release, you can pretty much bet Palm isn't out of the woods just yet.