Either the good folks over at Palm are putting a good spin on their current situation and trying to beautify themselves for potential suitors, or they really don’t care about all the takeover talk that has been going on for months.

Today, Palm said growth in sales of their Treo devices in Europe and Asia has given the company hope it can remain viable and ride the new wave of mobile smartphone expansion it sees coming in 2009.
Palm executives cited research that suggests the annual market for smartphones will grow to $36 billion by 2009.

“We think there is a big wave coming in this whole mobile computing revolution, which is becoming a bigger part of the overall mobile phone business. We have an enormous opportunity going forward,” Palm CEO Ed Colligan said at an investors meeting on Tuesday. “You can expect us to do business development around the world.”

Details on how Palm might ride this wave was not forthcoming.

He also refused to talk about takeover speculation. Motorola, Dell, HP and Nokia have all been touted as potential buyers. That speculation boosted Palm’s stocks by more than 20 percent, but since takeover talk has cooled over the last month, those stock prices have slipped back 13 points.

Palm’s Treo is in direct competition with RIM’s BlackBerry and, so far, the Berry is winning the day. Both companies are also trying to hold off Nokia and Motorola as they try and muscle into the consumer smartphone market. Apple Inc.'s iPhone is also due out in a few months.

Palm hopes that business users stay away from the entertainment oriented iPhone and that the business market for both Treo and Berry continue its vigorous growth.