Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners is a very well known investor in Wall Street. About two years ago he invested 20 percent of his private equity fund into Palm despite even his most dedicated followers having doubt in his decision. At the time RIM had just introduced the BlackBerry Pearl.

Last week at CES when the Palm Pre was finally announced he was finally able to show the world why he invested such a large amount without giving much reason. Palm’s new smartphone, the Pre, is a revolutionary handset that is designed to take the mobile market in a new direction with the help of a new operating system webOS.  Thus far everyone who has been able to get even a few minutes with the device absolutely love it.

McNamee also revealed some more features that we are certainly excited about. In the beginning Palm knew that they should not invest if it meant their success depended on the failure of RIM or Apple. The idea that peoples lives don’t revolve around Exchange email or iTunes has caused Palm not to focus their device on one specific area of strength, rather to focus on bringing everything together and integrating it all in one place. These handsets need to be more like a personal computer with data convergence. For instance your contacts all sync together, your Exchange contacts with your Facebook and Linkedin contacts. If there is a contact with a very similar name for – example S. Miller and Susan Muller – and have the same number, your phone will alert you and ask if you would like to merge them.

The Pre will also sync your calendar and pull data for your events including maps and Wikipedia information on the person or company you are meeting with. Using GPS the Pre can tell if you are running late for an appointment and will ask you if you would like it to send out an email or place a call them know if you are running late. Little ideas that really complete a device such as this is what will push Palm ahead in time.

Now even those of us who do not believe see that the Palm Pre and webOS is a serious platform designed to contend with the best that the mobile industry has to offer. If all goes as smoothly as it has in the past, Roger McNamee is going to be a far wealthier man than he is now. If only we had all invested in Palm two years ago.

[Via Yahoo]