Motorola To Acquire Symbol Technologies

Posted By: Ryan Tuesday, September 19, 2006 11:50:37 AM

Motorola and Symbol Technologies announced today that the two companies have signed a definitive merger agreement, under which Motorola has agreed to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Symbol for $15 per share in cash. The transaction has a total equity value of approximately $3.9 billion.

Symbol is a leader in designing, developing, manufacturing and servicing products and systems used in end-to-end enterprise mobility solutions featuring rugged mobile computing, advanced data capture, radio frequency identification (RFID), wireless infrastructure and mobility management.

Symbol SPT 1800 Palm OS Handheld“Motorola and Symbol share a common vision of providing enterprise mobility solutions. Symbol’s world-class product platform complements Motorola’s vision of seamless mobility and will be the core of Motorola’s enterprise group,” said Greg Brown, president of Motorola’s Networks and Enterprise business. “By combining our adjacent assets, expertise, customer and supplier bases and industry-leading products, we will together be a leading player in enterprise mobility. We can also deliver significant value to both our customers and stockholders.”

The acquisition of Symbol complements Motorola’s vision to deliver seamless mobility solutions to the globe. Motorola’s Networks and Enterprise business has more than 65 years of experience in meeting the mission-critical requirements of public safety, government and enterprise customers worldwide. This acquisition strengthens Motorola’s breadth of product solutions and introduces an extensive array of experienced channel partners to provide our seamless mobility experience to the enterprise.

Upon completion of the transaction, Symbol will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola and will be the cornerstone of Motorola’s Networks and Enterprise business. Motorola intends to maintain Symbol’s Holtsville, N.Y. headquarters, which will be the core of Motorola’s global enterprise mobility business and serve as a center of excellence.

Symbol is a Palm OS licensee and uses the Palm OS in several of its mobile computers including the SPT1550 and SPT1800 handhelds.

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On Symbol's state of the union

Tamog @ 9/19/2006 3:16:00 PM # Q
Hi,
now that I have my first post(w00t), lets look at Symbol a bit more. I saw quite a few Windows Mobile devices from those folks in vienna recently doing all kinds of jobs in businesses...I see no real reason why they should go on doing Palm.

IMHO, the company that we should look at for the future of Garnet is GSPDA...

Best regards
Tam Hanna

Find out more about the Palm OS in my blog:
http://tamspalm.tamoggemon.com

RE: On Symbol's state of the union
pmjoe @ 9/19/2006 4:27:30 PM # Q

> the company that we should look at for the future of Garnet is GSPDA

While you're on this type of prediction, what company should we look at for the future of Mac OS 9?

I don't think Symbol ever built a Garnet device, they were all 4.x (or maybe even 3.x) and earlier. I actually still see the Palm OS Symbol devices quite often. The monochrome screens and dragonball achitecture is more than adequate for many of their apps and much cheaper to produce than what's required for Microsoft's flavor of the day "mobile OS".

RE: On Symbol's state of the union
Tamog @ 9/20/2006 7:18:36 AM # Q
Hi,
and this is the problem. They didnt ship a new device for AGES, while new WinMob offerings are ditched out!

I saw loads of their WinMob boxen(one of them uses the T3-style stylus, haha) in vienna, yet no PalmOs ones. No WLAN on their Palm OS machines, no color, no hires, etc...

To quote the professor looking over my neck: they are sleeping deeply!

Best regards
Tam Hanna

Find out more about the Palm OS in my blog:
http://tamspalm.tamoggemon.com

RE: On Symbol's state of the union
Timothy Rapson @ 9/20/2006 7:57:03 AM # Q
Symbol was supposed to deliver a scanner/pda to the US Postal Service for me (and 200,000 other letter carriers) to use every day. It was supposed to be ready in April of 2005. I still don't have one. I might love to have one with a big VGA color screen that would also run all the PDA stuff I want. Of course, that will not happen.
The model we were to get was described in some press releases as a Symbol and in other places a Motorola. I thought the companies were connected somehow. I guess this makes it official.
So, I will keep using my current PDAs. It might be interesting to see if this merger can produce more powerful and smaller PDA/phones? Motorola makes their own ARM processor. Symbol is perhaps the oldest, best known name in business mobile computers, perhaps pre-dating Palm itself. Way back then Psion was big in this arena too.

RE: On Symbol's state of the union
potter @ 9/20/2006 9:23:08 AM # Q
Tamog @ 9/20/2006 7:18:36 AM wrote
No WLAN on their Palm OS machines,[...]

Symbol was one of the first (I think the first) to have a Wireless Palm OS device; the SPT1700 introduced May 24, 1999. They still have the SPT1800.

RE: On Symbol's state of the union
Tamog @ 9/22/2006 2:47:43 AM # Q
Hi Potter,
oops, my bad. One of the 18xx series has it..

But nevertheless, no new devices since 2001...no color...its sort of like Acceca.

Best regards
Tam Hanna

Find out more about the Palm OS in my blog:
http://tamspalm.tamoggemon.com

Reply to this comment

Tapwave

legodude522 @ 9/19/2006 5:14:06 PM # Q
Motorolla worked with Tapwave a bit to help optimise the Zodiac. There was once a rumour by some of the more "young" and giddy kids at Tapland that Motorolla aquired Tapwave after it's dimise.

Palm m125>Palm Zire71>Tapwave Zodiac 1>Palm Zire 72>Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000
[url=http://yatuc.com/3d_]Zaurus for sale![/url]
[url=http://yatuc.com/y2]Palm screen repair guide.[/url]
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The you-know-what is about to hit the fan at Palm

The_Voice_of_Reason @ 9/19/2006 4:38:11 PM # Q
Symbol can keep licensing PalmOS 3/4 forever and not miss a beat.

Palm, on the other hand needs to cut off a gangrenous limb to prevent blood poisoning.

Stay tuned, kiddies. And sell, sell, sell!!!*


TVoR

*Don't say I didn't warn you...

RE: The you-know-what is about to hit the fan at Palm
cbowers @ 9/20/2006 1:26:44 PM # Q
Sure, and since Motorola makes the dragonball processor OS 3/4 runs on, they're all set :-)

RE: The you-know-what is about to hit the fan at Palm
buckeyetex315-2 @ 9/25/2006 5:55:29 PM # Q

Timothy Rapson @ 9/20/2006 7:57:03 AM # wrote in "RE: On Symbol's state of the union" (thread above).

...Motorola makes their own ARM processor. Symbol ....

"Motorola" no longer makes microprocessors (Dragonball or ARM) or any other semiconductor component product. They spun off their SPS (Semiconductor Products Sector) a few years back. It is now known as Freescale.

Freescale also just agreed to be purchased by a consortium of private equity firms headed by The Blackstone Group and including Texas Pacific Group (which used to own Zilog).

http://media.freescale.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=196520&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=905906&highlight=

Besides, Palm hasn't used a 68K (Dragonball) or ARM microprocessor produced by Motorola / Freescale for years. I imagine there is at least some animosity at Motorola over the loss of business that they enjoyed in the early days of Palm. Unless the Motorola people managed to dump that corporate baggage along with SPS.

Full disclosure: I am a former Motorola SPS employee in the 68K and other divisions. Left years before the spin off to Freescale.

Brent


Palm Vx -----> LONG WAIT -----> Palm T|X

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Looks like SamH is gonna owe me $100

cervezas @ 9/20/2006 11:08:01 AM # Q
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/8129/#113400

If Motorola completes its Symbol acquisition within 6 months either side of the release of ALP, I win my bet with SamH on a technicality. Too bad for him because a year later it's clear that Moto's already lined up its partners for developing its new Linux phone platform and PalmSource doesn't seem to be among them, just as he predicted. Problem is, our bet was that Moto would become a Palm OS licensee, not necessarily Palm OS for Linux. Who knew that it would be Palm OS Garnet that they would be licensing (via their Symbol subsidiary)?!

Heh, I was sure I was going to have to be writing a check on that one.


David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

RE: Looks like SamH is gonna owe me $100
cervezas @ 9/20/2006 11:23:34 AM # Q
Correction: should have said Motorola will be licensing Palm OS 4, not Garnet, since the Symbol Palm OS devices are 68k.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: Looks like SamH is gonna owe me $100
Gekko @ 9/20/2006 12:09:30 PM # Q

i would only say you win if Moto releases a NEW PalmOS device post-acquisition. like 90-180 days post-acquisition close date. you can't retroactive the bet criteria, beersie.

RE: Looks like SamH is gonna owe me $100
cbowers @ 9/20/2006 1:29:23 PM # Q
Should be easy. The last I saw from them was a color OS 4 model, with many of the OS features of Handera's OS4. Not surprising as HandEra worked on it. Already sitting there in prototype waiting (years) for release :-)

RE: Looks like SamH is gonna owe me $100
cervezas @ 9/20/2006 3:00:36 PM # Q
Gekko wrote:
i would only say you win if Moto releases a NEW PalmOS device post-acquisition. like 90-180 days post-acquisition close date.

That wasn't the condition of the bet. It was that "Motorola will announce they are licensing Palm OS within 6 months of the release of Palm OS for Linux."


David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

RE: Looks like SamH is gonna owe me $100
Sam H @ 9/23/2006 9:34:33 AM # Q
Gekko is correct. Somehow I knew you'd welch on me, Beersie.
And if you want a 'technicality'
Sam H @ 9/23/2006 9:49:00 AM # Q
then 'technically' Motorola won't be licensing Palm OS.

Symbol has a Palm OS license and is becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola, but it's not being subsumed into Motorola's corporate structure. So the Palm OS license will be held by a subsidiary of Motorola, Inc. and not by Motorola, Inc. itself.

That's just a technicality, but, hey, you started it.

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