Gadgets
Motorola Solutions Buys Psion
Historic, London-Based PDA, Mobile OS Visionaries
By Gary Krakow
The end of the road for a legendary computing brand.
Psion, the British company responsible for a wonderful group of portable computers in the 1980's and 1990s. During the early days of “portable digital assistant” gadget technology.
Psion devices challenged the Palm Pilots, Apple Newtons and a slew of other wannabees for the title of best PDA of that era.
Psions were a very big deal back then (especially in Europe) and remained so until RIM's original BlackBerry devices brought two-way wireless radio networking into the PDA equation.
In 1998, Psion decided to split into two companies: the hardware remained Psion and still produces ruggedized handheld computers – while the software division and their 32-bit EPOC operating system was spun-off into a company named Symbian – the OS that still runs many lower-priced Nokia phones.
Today, Psion, the hardware company, found a buyer in Motorola. Not the smartphone company (MMI is now owned by GOOG) but Motorola Solutions (MSI). The price $200 million.
According to MSI CEO and Chairman Greg Brown, “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.”