One week ago, people still thought Palm was facing doomsday. Today, iPhone fanboys around the planet are eager to ditch their device for the Palm Pre. But just one day after the epic announcement, analysts are asking the necessary question – is the Palm Pre and Palm WebOS enough to save Palm?

The first place one might look is the stock market, as John Paczkowski from AllThingsD did:

Wall Street seems convinced that the Pre is not a postscript for Palm (PALM), but the beginnings of its rebirth. A historic turning point worthy of a trading bacchanal. Indeed, expressing a “renewed confidence in Palm’s prospects, Standard & Poor’s raised its target price on the company to $4.50 from $2.50. “Pre uses a new operating system that allows for the merging of multiple data sources,” Standard & Poor’s analyst Todd Rosenbluth said in a research note. “While the new system has been in long-term development, we believe it could help to bring consumer and carrier interest back to PALM’s devices, which have been losing market share.”

Matt Hoffman of Cowen & Co. went one step further:

“We believe WebOS will immediately be competitive with the industry’s most advanced mobile platforms, including Apple’s OS X and Google’s Android,”

That sounds like  saving grace to me, at least on the stock market analyst side of things. Eric Savitz from SeekingAlpha posed the exact question, “Is Palm Saved?” in the title of his article… unfortunately it doesn’t address the question and only goes over the “what we know and don’t know” about the Palm Pre saying only, “Palm actually has a story to tell, which has not been the case for a long, long time.”

Perhaps the best explanation of the Saving Palm movement is explained by Zach Epstein of BGR who, at least initially, is overwhelmingly encouraged:

First impressions mean everything and for the time being it’s safe to say we were supremely wowed. Seriously, did you ever imagine you’d see the day when Palm would release a handset and OS combo so perfectly evolutionary and well designed?

But Epstein refuses to simply buy into the hype without critically analyzing Palm’s current position in the market. There is still a long way to go and he cites an exclusive Sprint debut as the main detractor from Palm’s revival attempts. Will the Palm Pre be available on Verizon since its CDMA? One would think, at some point, it would. How about AT&T and/or T-Mobile?

We’re forgetting that the Palm Pre is just one device but the Palm WebOS could have several devices launch with it during 2009. So don’t be dismayed if the Palm Pre isn’t on your carrier or isn’t exactly perfect for your needs. Palm’s renewed efforts are only immediately invested in the Pre but in the long-term there is a kick butt OS to lead the way.