Psion Teklogix

Last updated
Psion Teklogix
Company type Subsidiary of Zebra Technologies
Industry Technology, Computers, RFID, WiFi, Mobile Devices, Wireless LAN, Bluetooth, Data Capture
Predecessor Psion, Teklogix
Founded2000
Headquarters
Mississauga, Ontario
,
Canada
Key people
 David Potter, (Chairman)
John Conoley (CEO)
ProductsNEO, Ikôn, Workabout PRO, 7530, 7535
Revenue £199.7 million (2007)
£9.5 million (2007)
£7.0 million (2007)
Number of employees
1,229 (2007)
Parent Zebra Technologies

Psion Teklogix Inc. was the operational business of Psion.

Contents

Psion Teklogix is a global provider of solutions for mobile computing and wireless data collection. Psion Teklogix' products and services include rugged mobile hardware, secure wireless networks, software, professional services and support programs.

Psion Teklogix was formed in September 2000 as a result of the merger between U.K.-based Psion Enterprise division of Psion PLC, and Canadian-based Teklogix Inc.
Psion Teklogix is headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada with additional corporate offices located in Europe, the United States, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
Psion Teklogix is an ISO 9001:2000 registered company, and holds a certificate of registration from the British Standards Institution.

In 2012 Motorola Solutions purchased Psion Teklogix for $200 million. [1] [2]

In October 2014, the Motorola Solutions' enterprise business (including assets acquired in the Psion Teklogix purchase) was sold to Zebra Technologies for $3.45B. [3]

History

Teklogix was created in 1967 by Rod Coutts, a 1964 bachelor of applied science in electrical engineering, [4] together with a small group of young Canadian engineers. The company grew to specialize in empowering mobile workers with wireless data transmission and real-time data management within the logistics industry.

The Psion Group, founded in 1980 by David Potter, [5] is widely credited with having created the world's first volume produced PDA with the launch of the Psion Organiser in 1984. Generally recognized as the world's first practical pocket computer, the Organiser helped evolve Psion into a major technology player.

In 2000 Psion acquired Teklogix in Canada for £240 million, and merged its business-to-business division, Psion Enterprise, with the newly acquired company. Teklogix was re-branded Psion Teklogix. This division now forms the core of Psion Plc's business. [6]

In 2002 Psion Teklogix created a new division called Psion Software. This business developed push email solutions for Symbian smartphones, Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. This business was sold to Visto (USA) in 2003. [7]

In 2004, Psion Teklogix announced its intention to dispose of the company's remaining Symbian shareholding to Nokia, as they no longer regarded it as a core part of their strategy. [8]

In 2005, Psion Teklogix acquired Ottawa-based image capture firm Symagery Microsystems. [9]

In 2011, the company dropped "Teklogix" from its name. [10]

In 2012, Psion Teklogix was acquired by Motorola for US$200 million. [11]

Psion Teklogix and Linux

Psion PLC had a lengthy, but distant, interest in Linux as an operating system on its electronic devices. In 1998, it supported the Linux7K project that had been initiated by Ed Bailey at Red Hat, which was to port Linux to its Series 5 personal computer. [12] [13] [14] The project was named after the Cirrus Logic PS-7110 chip of the Series 5. Although this project was one of the earliest attempts to port Linux to a handheld computer, [15] it did not come to fruition for Psion. The project soon transitioned to an informal open source project at Calcaria.net, that kept the name Linux7K. After the project transitioned again to sourceforge.net, the project's name was changed to a more general name "PsiLinux", and more recently to "OpenPsion". [16] The project has developed Linux kernels and filesystems for the Revo, Series 5 and 5MX, and Series 7 and netBook.

In 2003–4, Psion Teklogix and its founder David Potter expressed interest in Linux as the operating system for its devices as it divested from Symbian. [17] [18] [19] However, the only result of that interest was Linux as the operating system on a limited number of custom NetBook Pros designed for a hospital setting. [20]

Psion Teklogix and the term Netbook

Psion registered the trademark NETBOOK in various territories, including European Union [21] and U.S. Trademark 75,215,401 , which was applied for on 18 December 1996 and registered by USPTO on 21 November 2000. They used this trademark [22] for the Psion netBook product (discontinued in November 2003 [23] ) and more recently the NETBOOK PRO, from October 2003 onwards. [24]

Intel began the use of the term netbook in March 2008 as a generic term to describe "small laptops that are designed for wireless communication and access to the Internet", believing they were "not offering a branded line of computers here" and "see no naming conflict". [25]

In response to the growing use of this term, on 23 December 2008 Psion Teklogix sent cease and desist letters [26] to various parties including enthusiast website(s) demanding they no longer use the term "netbook". [27] [28]

In early 2009 Intel sued Psion Teklogix (US & Canada) and Psion (UK) in the Federal Court, seeking a cancellation of the trademark and an order enjoining Psion from asserting any trademark rights in the term "netbook", a declarative judgement regarding their use of the term, attorneys' fees, costs and disbursements and "such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper". [29] [30] The suit was settled out of court, and on June 2, 2009 Psion announced that the company was withdrawing all of its trademark registrations for the term "Netbook" and that Psion agreed to "waive all its rights against third parties in respect of past, current or future use" of the term. [31]

Similar marks have been recently rejected by the USPTO citing a "likelihood of confusion" under section 2(d), including 'G NETBOOK' ( U.S. Trademark 77,527,311 rejected 31 October 2008), MSI's 'WIND NETBOOK' ( U.S. Trademark 77,580,272 ) and Coby Electronics' 'COBY NETBOOK' ( U.S. Trademark 77,590,174 rejected 13 January 2009).[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Executable and Linkable Format</span> Standard file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps.

In computing, the Executable and Linkable Format, is a common standard file format for executable files, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps. First published in the specification for the application binary interface (ABI) of the Unix operating system version named System V Release 4 (SVR4), and later in the Tool Interface Standard, it was quickly accepted among different vendors of Unix systems. In 1999, it was chosen as the standard binary file format for Unix and Unix-like systems on x86 processors by the 86open project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psion (company)</span> Software company in Canada

Psion PLC was a designer and manufacturer of mobile handheld computers for commercial and industrial uses. The company was headquartered in London, England, with major operations in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, and other company offices in Europe, the United States, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. It was a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Helix DNA was a project to produce computer software that can play audio and video media in various formats and aid in creating such media. It is intended as a largely free and open-source digital media framework that runs on numerous operating systems and processors and it was started by RealNetworks, which contributed much of the code. The Helix Community was an open collaborative effort to develop and extend the Helix DNA platform. The Helix Project has been discontinued.

Symbian Ltd. was a software development and licensing consortium company, known for the Symbian operating system (OS), for smartphones and some related devices. Its headquarters were in Southwark, London, England, with other offices opened in Cambridge, Sweden, Silicon Valley, Japan, India, China, South Korea, and Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UIQ</span> Software platform

UIQ was a software platform based upon Symbian OS, created by UIQ Technology AB. It is a graphical user interface layer that provides additional components to the core operating system, to enable the development of feature-rich mobile phones that are open to expanded capabilities through third-party applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netbook</span> Class of small and inexpensive laptops

A netbook is a small and inexpensive laptop designed primarily as a means of accessing the Internet. Netbooks were sold from 2007 until around 2013, when the widespread advent of smartphones and tablets eclipsed their popularity.

Wind River Systems, also known as Wind River, is an Alameda, California–based company, subsidiary of Aptiv PLC. The company develops embedded system and cloud software consisting of real-time operating systems software, industry-specific software, simulation technology, development tools and middleware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psion netBook</span>

The Psion netBook is a small subnotebook computer developed by Psion. Released in 1999, it was for the mobile enterprise market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zebra Technologies</span> American technology company

Zebra Technologies Corporation is an American mobile computing company specializing in technology used to sense, analyze, and act in real time. The company manufactures and sells marking, tracking, and computer printing technologies. Its products include mobile computers and tablets, software, thermal barcode label and receipt printers, RFID smart label printers/encoders/fixed & handheld readers/antennas, autonomous mobile robots (AMR’s) & machine vision (MV), and fixed industrial scanning hardware & software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symbol Technologies</span> American technology company

Symbol Technologies is an American manufacturer and supplier of mobile data capture and delivery equipment. The company specializes in barcode scanners, mobile computers, RFID systems and Wireless LAN infrastructure. In 2014, Symbol Technologies became a subsidiary of Zebra Technologies, and is headquartered in Holtsville, New York, on Long Island.

The Ångström distribution is a defunct Linux distribution for a variety of embedded devices. The distribution is the result of work by developers from the OpenZaurus, OpenEmbedded, and OpenSIMpad projects. The graphical user interfaces (GUIs) available are OPIE and GPE among other options.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tizen Association</span>

The Tizen Association, formerly the LiMo Foundation, is a non-profit consortium which develops and maintains the Tizen mobile operating system. Tizen is a Linux-based operating system for smartphones and other mobile devices. The founding members were Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone. The consortium's work resulted in the LiMo Platform—which was integrated into mobile phone products from NEC, Panasonic and Samsung—and later became the Tizen platform.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moblin</span>

Moblin, short for 'mobile Linux', is a discontinued open source operating system and application stack for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), netbooks, nettops and embedded devices.

Teklogix International Inc., or Teklogix, was a tech company founded in 1967 by engineers working at Ferranti-Packard. The company focused on mini computer applications. It designed and built complete systems based upon DEC's PDP-8 computer, DEC's logic modules and purpose built logic. Many of the company's projects involved control of material handling systems and this led to the development of radio linked terminals for installation on fork lift trucks complete with multiplexers to interface to a variety of main frame computer systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nokia Booklet 3G</span>

The Nokia Booklet 3G was a netbook produced by the Finnish company Nokia. It was announced on 24 August 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symbian</span> Discontinued mobile operating system

Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS is a descendant of Psion's EPOC, and was released exclusively on ARM processors, although an unreleased x86 port existed. Symbian was used by many major mobile phone brands, like Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and above all by Nokia. It was also prevalent in Japan by brands including Fujitsu, Sharp and Mitsubishi. As a pioneer that established the smartphone industry, it was the most popular smartphone OS on a worldwide average until the end of 2010, at a time when smartphones were in limited use, when it was overtaken by iOS and Android. It was notably less popular in North America.

Intel Mobile Communications (IMC), is the mobile research and development division of Intel. It was formed when Intel completed the acquisition of the Wireless Solutions (WLS) division of Infineon early in 2011 for US$1.4 billion. The Infineon subsidiary Comneon was also acquired by Intel and integrated into Intel Mobile Communications. IMC maintained offices in Munich from the Comneon deal under Intel Mobile Communications GmbH. Some other offices in Germany were closed in 2015.

An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the computer itself. Complex software designed for use on a personal computer, for example, may have a related app designed for use on a mobile device. Today apps are normally designed to run on a specific operating system—such as the contemporary iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux or Android—but in the past mobile carriers had their own portals for apps and related media content.

EPOC is a mobile operating system developed by Psion, a British company founded in 1980. It began as a 16-bit operating system (OS) for Psion's own x86-compatible devices, and was later replaced by a 32-bit system for x86 and ARM. Psion licensed the 32-bit system to other hardware makers, such as Ericsson.

Mobilinux is a discontinued Linux distribution by MontaVista. It was announced on April 25, 2005.

References

  1. ↑ "Motorola Solutions buys Psion for $200m". Financial Times. June 15, 2012. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
  2. ↑ Fingas, Jon (2012-06-15). "Motorola Solutions buys Psion for $200 million" . Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  3. ↑ Roy, Abhirup (2014-04-15). "Zebra Tech to buy Motorola Solutions". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2014-04-15. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  4. ↑ News release, University of Waterloo, 19 January 2018.
  5. ↑ "The whole world in his hand". The Guardian. 2000-02-04. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  6. ↑ "Psion buys Teklogix". BBC News. 2000-07-12. Retrieved 2008-12-27.
  7. ↑ Cullen, Drew. "Visto snaps up Psion Software". www.theregister.com. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  8. ↑ Litchfield, Steve (2005) [1998]. "The History of Psion". Palmtop Magazine. Archived from the original on 2010-01-11. Retrieved 2008-12-27.
  9. ↑ "Psion Teklogix Acquires Symagery Microsystems (Press release)" (Press release). June 17, 2005. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
  10. ↑ "Psion Removes "Teklogix" Name and Refreshes Corporate Identity". www.businesswire.com. 2011-01-31. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  11. ↑ Valorzi, John (29 October 2012). "Mississauga's Psion Teklogix bought by Motorola". Mississauga.com. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  12. ↑ Jones, Marc Ambasna (May 11, 1999). "Opinion: Mobile Linux for Bluetooth - spanner for Microsoft?". ZDNet. ZDNet UK. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
  13. ↑ Jones, Marc Ambasna (April 23, 1999). "Mobile Linux for Psion pressures Win CE". ZDNet. ZDNet UK. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
  14. ↑ Almesberger, Werner (1999). "Linux in the pocket - The Linux-7k project". Linux Symposium, Ottawa. Archived from the original on 2007-07-01. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
  15. ↑ Maddox, Paul (May 4, 2000). "Linux for handhelds: fact or fiction?". Linux Today Wireless Developer Network. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
  16. ↑ OpenPsion, SourceForge.
  17. ↑ Kewney, Guy (February 9, 2004). "Psion looks past Windows to Linux as Nokia buys Symbian". newswireless.net. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
  18. ↑ Partridge, Chris (July 8, 2003). "Psion prepares the way for the one true OS". vunet.com. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
  19. ↑ Kewney, Guy (February 2004). "What Will Become the Next Scion of Psion?". eWeek. Ziff Davis Media Inc. Archived from the original on 2007-11-26. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
  20. ↑ Glover, Tony (May 23, 2004). "NHS deal with Psion heralds move away from Windows". The Business Online. Archived from the original on 2004-06-06. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
  21. ↑ EUTM 000428250
  22. ↑ Psion netbook news release Archived 2011-06-08 at the Wayback Machine
  23. ↑ "Zebra Technologies | Visible. Connected. Optimized. | Zebra". Zebra Technologies. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  24. ↑ "Psion Teklogix - Mobile CRM Takes Off with Psion Teklogix' NETBOOK PRO". 2003-12-05. Archived from the original on 2003-12-05. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  25. ↑ "Blogs". community.intel.com. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  26. ↑ Psion Cease and Desist Letter Archived 2009-03-26 at the Wayback Machine
  27. ↑ "jkOnTheRun". Archived from the original on 2009-02-12. Retrieved 2009-02-09.
  28. ↑ "Psion threatens netbook sites over trademarks". The Guardian . 2008-12-24. Archived from the original on 2023-01-20.
  29. ↑ Complaint for Injunctive Relief, Declaratory Judgment & Cancellation of Federal Trademark
  30. ↑ Intel Wants 'Netbook' Trademark Canceled
  31. ↑ "Psion, Intel settle 'Netbook' trademark dispute". Archived from the original on 2012-04-08. Retrieved 2010-03-03.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.