As he kicked off the Wired Business Conference on Monday, Wired magazine’s editor in chief, Chris Anderson, started talking about Jell-O.

Anderson was explaining the thesis of his forthcoming book, “Free,” about the realities of making a profit and building a business in an environment rife with digital goods that can be replicated at almost no cost.

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To say Palm has a lot riding on the Pre smartphone is an understatement. Amid stiff competition from Apple (AAPL) and Research In Motion (RIMM), Palm’s very survival may hinge on the success of the device, expected to reach Sprint Nextel (S) store shelves no later than June 30.

And while it’s hard to predict demand for the Pre, preliminary analysis suggests Palm (PALM) will make a healthy profit from the units it does sell.

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IBM (IBM) posted first-quarter earnings of $2.3 billion, down 1 percent from its profit a year earlier, while revenue fell 11 percent to $21.71 billion.

Highlights from the company’s conference call with analysts:

4:33: CFO Mark Loughridge will be flying solo on the call today.

4:35: He starts off with some examples of how IBM has been transforming itself, including globalization and shifting to “higher-value areas.”

4:36: IBM’s profit model now has less dependence on hardware, which is more subject to economic swings, he says. “This quarter effectively all of our pretax profit came from software, services and financing.”

4:38: Revenue down, but “we had outstanding margin performance.”

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Behold the Power of Potter. Time Warner (TWX) yesterday disclosed it won’t put out the new Harry Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” this November as originally planned, and instead will make it a Summer 2009, release–specifically, for July 17 of next year. That’s going to hurt Electronic Arts (ERTS), which will lose a 2008 holiday game title that represents about $150 million in revenue this year, according to analysts. The revenue and profit should come back the following year, though.

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Blockbuster (BBI) this morning gets mixed reviews for its Q1 financial results.

The bottom-line gets raves: Profits of 20 cents a share beat the Street by a nickel.

The top-line gets jeers: Revenue of $1.39 billion missed the consensus view of $1.44 billion.

Blockbuster said it had 2.9% same-store sales growth, with a 0.4% rise in same-store rental revenue and a 19.7% increase in same-store merchandise sales.

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