Yes, we’re excited about the new Palm Pre and, more accurately, the WebOS that drives it. But it’s not even made it to the market before the competition – in this case HTC – is readying a device intended to go toe-to-toe with Palm’s prodigal return.

Execs from Australian company Telstra visited the Palm demo at the CES, and were suitably impressed, but also stopped by HTC’s representatives (who were present, but not exhibiting) and were privy to a new, as yet unannounced device from the hardware manufacturer.

"We have seen both and we believe that the new HTC phone will be a real competitor to the iPhone and the Pre which at this stage looks nice but is still not delivered to market,” Telstra said.

This new handset is supposedly run by a combination of the Android operating system and some proprietary Linux code written by HTC, and according to Telstra, it’s “better and more functional”. No word from HTC as yet, but the device is expected to be unveiled mid-2009.

Looks as though the iPhone really will get a bit of competition this year.