Symbol Renews Palm OS License

Posted By: Ed Monday, May 7, 2001 10:57:07 AM

While most Palm enthusiasts frequently forget about them, Symbol Technologies is an important licensee of the Palm OS to Palm itself. Symbol has been taking handhelds into vertical industries, such as retail, transportation, distribution, logistics, parcel and postal delivery, manufacturing, healthcare, and other industries that require portable and flexible devices. Palm and Symbol today announced Symbol has extended its license through April 2005.

Palm OS based solutions from Symbol have been put in place around the World by diverse customers such as Sears, the U.S. Postal Service, Office Depot, the Korean Postal Service, and the Duke University Medical Center. For example, Sears has implemented Symbol's next-generation, in-store wireless mobile computing solutions for its 860 U.S. full-line department stores. Sears is putting in place nearly 15,000 Symbol handheld computers, which are based on the Palm OS and incorporate Symbol's browser.

"As the leader in mission-critical enterprise vertical markets, Symbol is a strategic partner for us in the fast-growing enterprise space," said Alan Kessler, general manager of Palm's Platform Solutions Group. "Symbol has deployed the Palm OS to address mobile and remote workers in several key enterprise vertical markets, such as retail and transportation. Palm's association with Symbol has created a powerful solution set in the marketplace that is creating strong competitive advantages for many enterprise businesses."

Today, some 10 million Symbol bar code scanners, mobile computers and wireless LANs are used worldwide.

Symbol Reports Record Revenue and Income

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licenses

I.M. Anonymous @ 5/7/2001 12:11:42 PM #

How does Palm make $$ of this - is it a certain amount per unit (I've heard $8) - plus an upfront fee (I wonder how much) for the license privledge?

Symbol for the consumer market?

digichimp @ 5/8/2001 1:52:59 AM #

Why doesn't Symbol pitch to a niche in the Consumer Market?

If anyone has played with a Symbol Palm, it is quite impressive to experience the rugged design of a Symbol. You can literally punch the screen with your fist and it still works like a charm. I think Symbol should consider pitching this 'ruggedize' version to the masses. Call it the Camping Palm or Palm for Everest.

do _not_ use it at office :)

I.M. Anonymous @ 5/8/2001 3:00:34 AM #

|Why doesn't Symbol pitch to a niche in the Consumer Market?

Well, it _might_ be an idea, just do not use it at office.

Let me explain: I recently borrowed a symbol from a friend of mine for a couple of weeks because I was curious, bringing it also to the office.
Well, whenever I was standing somewhere holding it everybody who does not know me was asking if I was the FedEx guy, what I was doing there, The depot is downstairs, this area is not allowed for externals, please send this stuff to wherevertheheck and so on.
Symbol is a great kind of palm, will withstand more than one accident, but you're all warned about using it at office ;)))

RE: Symbol for the consumer market?

I.M. Anonymous @ 5/8/2001 1:54:10 PM #

Hmm. It sounds like these Symbols should come with a 10,000X IR port so that you could point it at that guy's eyes and fry his brain out!

I think the reason why they don't go for the consumer market is that they would have to lower the price of their handheld SIGNIFICANTLY in order to sell this to consumers or try to charge consumers what they charge businesses which is A LOT.

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