Rating: One of the pioneers of mobile computing
Well it appears that Motorola Solutions has acquired the remnants of Psion in a deal worth around £129 million ($200 million). Incidentally, that’s not the same part of Motorola which makes mobile phones and was recently sold to Google. That was the Motorola Mobility half of the business. Incidentally, there are rumours that Google may be interested in flogging off the Motorola brand and phone technology (but not the patents) to China’s Huawei. It seems Motorola wants Psion for its expertise in creating ruggedized mobile computers.GoMobile News has a long history of connexions with Psion. The company actually created the EPOC mobile OS which eventually became Symbian. The Godfather of Symbian, Colly Myers, is now in charge of 63336 of course.
GoMobile News never could understand why Psion committed suicide in the mainstream PDA market by suddenly announcing it was no longer going to develop any successor to the highly popular Revo, Series 7 and Netbook products in an interview with the FT.
Anyway, having sold its share of Symbian back around 2004, Psion was left with the ruggedised mobile computers which it had inherited as part of its acquisition of a Canadian company known as Teklogix. So RIM isn’t the only mobile expert to come out of Canada.
“Psion is a compelling opportunity to strengthen our industry-leading, mobile-computing portfolio with ruggedized handheld products and vehicle-mount terminals that will deepen our presence in the global markets in which we compete,” argued Greg Brown, CEO with Motorola Solutions.
Psion has approximately 830 employees, customers in more than 50 countries and delivered 2011 revenues of £176 million (approximately $273 million).
Curiously, Teklogix is a long time supporter of Windows CE and Windows Mobile GoMobile News wonders if a move to Windows Phone 8 (WP8 Apollo) is planned?
