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Motorola To Buy PDA-Inventor Psion For $200 Million
judgecorp writes "Psion, the company which made the first handheld computers in the 1980s, invented the PDA, and launched the once-unstoppable Symbian OS, is to be bought by Motorola Solutions for $200 million. Following a merger with Teklogix ten years ago, Psion has just been making ruggedised business devices, a business where Motorola Solutions also plays — note, this is Motorola Solutions, not the phones division Motorola Mobility, which Google recently bought."
Incredible to think Nokia went from the top slot to almost nowhere in the space of one CEO. Not only that, but he's ENTRENCHING himself further in, replacing some of the key staff with his own choices. Elop is to Nokia what Icahn was to Yahoo, a fake saviour that actually decimates the company for their own ends.
He's going to be difficult to unseat now, well until the company is sold to Microsoft for a pittance, but seriously, can any shareholder say he's done a good job? Nokia could be the major Android player now, Huawai the Chinese maker is growing at a huge rate and came in late to the Android market, yet Nokia's Elop claimed it was a meat market they couldn't make money in???
Handheld electronic organizers were around since the late 1970s. Toshiba, Canon, and Sharp were some of the companies that made them. In the early 1980s those companies were joined by Matsushita (Panasonic/Quasar), Casio, and others. Psion did not not "invent" the PDA any more than Apple "invented" the PDA in 1993 ..... 15 years after such products debuted.
Mostorola, you mean Motorola?
What i do know is my first PDA, though the term did not come into use until the 1990s, was a Tandy 100. It was a portable device that stored all the data I needed for life. It was a little big, but no worse than a Dayrunner or franklin planner, and you saved on all those horribly expensive refills. This machine certainly lead me to a life or electronic organization. I also know that for some of my friends the first PDA was an HP calculator with magnetic strip attachement. This must have 1981-82. Every morning they would enter data for their plan. It was primitive but seemed to be effective for them.
I will say that, for me, the first effective and portable PDA was the Palm V.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Slightly OT, but forgive me -- why have so many tech companies either merged or split in the past couple decades?
I ask because it seems it's often a poor move in the long run if you think about it. Yahoo, Microsoft, and HP seem especially prone to questionable purchases an sales.
Is it just about making a quick buck? Or is there some other benefit to all of this that I'm not seeing?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
They both use the Motorala trademark at the same time? How does that work out?
And do they have an agreement not to get into each other's business? Does this change that?
And are these the same guys that make bar code scanners?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Surely Google made Motorola agree to some sort of non-compete clause?
Buying a mobile device company sounds a lot like competing, trying to rebuild the division they just sold off for massive amounts of money?
Buying an early player in the mobile device market suggests they are after patents and prior art which protects them from other patents.
Raises a question about whether Google got the full mobile package, or if Motorola kept some patents, IP and key staff on hand in order to stay in the mobile technology sector?
A while ago I realized every single manufacturer of electronic devices I loved has either gone bankrupt or shut down that particular division. Here's my list in no particular order:
- Psion 5, 5MX, 5MX Pro
- Palm III, Vx, m500
- Sony Clie NR70, NX70, TH55 and many others
- Nokia E71, N900, N9
I hold a particular soft spot for Psion though, as their devices were truly works of art. It took a decade for the same level of integration between the OS and component applications to be matched. The hardware was (almost) bulletproof, with the 5 series sliding keyboard being a truly impressive piece of engineering. However having a battery life measured in DAYS is still a pipe dream...
I do seem to have a knack for picking dying technologies though. A friend joked that I should be given a free Windows phone, that will certainly spell its demise.
Dude, chill. Seriously. It's not that big a deal. In fact, if it was copied with your name still attached to it, if anything, it might help you sell more books. You were credited, after all, which is a lot better than some authors receive.
This offense rates maybe a "slightly miffed" reaction at most. The guy who copied it isn't keeping you from feeding your family. At worst he cost you a few pennies in advertising revenue, except that since you admitted that you took the original down, he's not even costing you that. On principle, you're right, but to be brutally honest, your melodramatic "woe is me" posts are making you come off as a bit of a tool, and thus unsympathetic, in spite of it.
Every creative person in the world has to live with their stuff being taken now and then. Writers, musicians, painters, future theorists, computer programmers, the list goes on and on. Such is the cost of creating something and putting it out there. Sure, you can wallow in anger and misery, or you can take it as a compliment that you actually created something worth copying, which means that you very likely have the capability of creating something worth monetary value.
as Psion Flight Simulator??
The Speccy games you thought were good until you tried, oh, every other game
I've done some work with Motorola's portable business-oriented gadgets, mostly stuff that showed up with their acquisition of Symbol Technologies, and all I can say is this: Meh.
Everything I've used from them is either poorly supported or negatively supported. Documentation that is either far too lengthy and wrong or just plain non-existent. Software that, in the best case, barely works. Firmware full of bugs. 802.11 radios that don't really like dealing with 802.11. No ability to get anything pushed up the ladder to the dudes who can actually fix stuff, no matter how many thousand units you'd love to buy if the fucking things would actually work.
Based on this dreary track record of failure, frustration, and despair, I hasten to say that I'm not looking forward seeing what comes out of this deal.
(I'd post more details, but dealing with other Motorola products that actually work (such as their 2-way radios) is a big part of my bread-and-butter, and I'm allergic to posting as AC.)
Kid-proof tablet..
that story was posted a couple of few ago. go look through the history, or use google to search the site.
Please note apple, they invented it so try not to sue them as well.
When they split they're becoming more focused & agile or concentrating on core competences. When they merge they're diversifying or seeking synergies.
It's fashion, plus new CEOs trying to mark their territory.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No, the story was posted hours later. Look at the time. Makes me wonder if Slashdot outsourced editing to the other side of the world.
...Is, does Motorola now hold the rights to the Horace games?
I wanna see a gritty 3D reboot of that series! Horace goes skiing as an FPS? A Horace MMORPG?
Copyright infringement yes, plagiarism, no. Plagiarism is the use of what someone else has written without crediting them. This site didn't do that. Similarly, one can plagiarize from work that's in the public domain.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Makes me wonder if Slashdot outsourced editing to the other side of the world.
Why or how would you outsource something that doesn't appear to exist?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Given that the doomed partnership between motorola and psion to produce the first smartphone was often cited as the reason for the demise of psion in the consumer market.
http://stevelitchfield.com/historyofpsion.htm - see the paragraph 'the fall'
and this is was the machine that never was...
http://mobileopera.com/odin
D
How is this really different than me archiving something I like that isn't around anymore
In such a case, you aren't redistributing.
or hell the internet archive (archive.org)
The Wayback Machine obeys robots.txt.
All those pictures in the article, did you take them? Or are you just presenting them accredited to the photographer.
Used under an explicit license, I'll assume for the sake of argument.
Motorola
Google Motorola
Psion Motorola
???
15 year since Psion 5 was released. I imagine it's up by now. Amazed no-one bought it from Psion 10 years ago.
Still, people want the screen on the outside now tho I see MS is back to the laptop with detachable keyboard idea.