“Now we aren’t typically the carrier that comes out and announces what we are going to be selling 12 months from now. Other carriers do that, and the media loves to speculate on what we are bringing to market. But what I will tell you is that over the next six months or so you will see devices like the Palm Pre and the cousin on our network from Palm.”

– Verizon Wireless President and CEO Lowell McAdam

For Palm, 2010 will be a year of channel expansion, with its new webOS handsets coming to more carriers. Top among them, Verizon (VZ), which has been rumored to be getting a device “like the Palm Pre” since Palm (PALM) launched it. In a research note to investors today, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu says a Palm smartphone on Verizon is pretty much inevitable.

“Based on our checks with industry and supply chain sources, we have fairly high conviction in Verizon carrying Palm’s webOS-based smart phones sometime in 2010 (potentially as early as 1H),” Wu writes.

“The reason,” Wu explains, “is three-fold: 1) despite heavy promotion and favorable reviews, sales of Android 2.0 smart phones (MOT Droid and HTC Droid Eris) have been somewhat disappointing and below expectations; 2) strong indications point to Palm’s launch exclusive with Sprint ending in 2009; and 3) our checks show high interest in webOS from Verizon including public comments by CEO Lowell McAdam.”

Interesting, especially the comment about Droid sales. If Wu is right, the device may not prove as daunting a competitive challenge as you would think.

“It’s too early to declare game over,” Wu says. “Talking with investors, most have written off Palm as a legitimate competitor and assumed Android will be the platform of choice at Verizon and other carriers. We believe Palm still has sizable advantages with its multitouch capability and vertical integration.”

Kaufman Bros. analyst Aaron Kessler recently conducted a survey of 700 Internet users (see charts below; click to enlarge) and found that 20 percent of those who aren’t currently Netflix (NFLX) subscribers plan to register for the service in the next five years. Moreover, 68 percent of all respondents said that “the ability to watch videos on the Internet vs. renting from a physical store or by mail” doesn’t much matter to them. Only six percent said that feature is important.

And if DVD rental stores were to suddenly disappear from the face of the earth, 52 percent would turn to a DVD-by-mail service as a replacement. A smaller number, 32 percent, would turn to the Internet.

“DVD by Mail life cycle may be longer than current thinking,” Kessler said in a research note issued today. “While we would agree that a large percentage of the DVD rental market will move to digital in the long term, our survey indicates that the current life cycle of physical rentals may be longer than people think.”

[Image credit: NetFlix Origami]

Ugly just isn’t going to cut it in today’s mobile device market. That’s what Dell is finding as it attempts to build a smartphone capable of holding its own against the RIM’s (RIMM) Blackberry, Apple’s (APPL) iPhone and Palm’s (PALM) upcoming Pre.

According to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, the PC maker’s first smartphone prototypes have been rejected by wireless network operators, which found them dull compared with current and upcoming devices. “From our conversation with supply chain and industry sources, it appears that it ultimately came down to lack of carrier interest and small subsidies, making it difficult for Dell to make a profit,” Wu explained in a message to investors, noting that prototypes running Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile and Google’s (GOOG) Android both were dismissed by carriers for their “lack of differentiation.”

Apparently, Dell’s “nondescript and gray” aesthetic just doesn’t translate to the cellphone market.

Undaunted by such criticisms, Dell (DELL) has gone back to the drawing board in the hopes of designing a more appealing device and may even consider an acquisition to spur such efforts along. Said Wu, “Dell remains committed to the cell phone space as it appreciates the opportunity in smart phones and the longer-term cannibalization potential of PCs.”

Over at Kaufman Bros., analyst Shaw Wu is betting on new iMacs as well as a sneak preview of Mac OS X 10.6 Leopard. “Our sense is that investor expectations [for Macworld] are fairly modest since it was announced that CEO Steve Jobs wouldn’t be the keynote speaker,” he wrote in a recent research note. “Nonetheless, we view new Macs as a positive catalyst as Apple’s desktop business (iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro) needs a refresh to re-ignite sales.”

“There will not be any revolutionary products at this year’s event,” writes Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who anticipates the announcement of an updated iMac, possibly a redesigned Mac mini and little else.

Analyst Ben Reitzes of Barclays Capital expects a new iMac to the big announcement in an otherwise “neutral event.”

Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi has similarly low expectations. “We expect MacWorld to be relatively unexciting, with the major highlights likely to be (1) a demonstration of Mac OSX 10.6 “SnowLeopard,” (2) new Mac desktops (iMac, MacMini) incorporating the same Nvidia chipset in the new MacBooks, and (3) a modest update to the AppleTV,” he writes. “A new iPhone is unlikely, in our view, though we do expect Apple to introduce a lower-end iPhone model within the first half of the year. Apple announced three weeks ago that this will be its last appearance at MacWorld, and that CEO Steve Jobs will not deliver the keynote this year. Given this, and a relative lack of new product rumors, we do not expect any big surprise announcements at MacWorld.”