London – Psion officially announced its exit from the handheld market having ceased producing handhelds in May.
Psion was one of the early handheld manufacturers and gained strong market share in Europe, particularly the United Kingdom for its keyboard-based products. However, the company, which produced the Series 3 and Series 5 organizers, did not gain sufficient share to compete with Palm or Microsoft OS-based handhelds.
According to Gartner Dataquest, San Jose, Calif, ‘They never really were very successful in North America. The Symbian OS they used wasn’t garnering much third party support, so it never really gained much traction outside the United Kingdom. And then by spreading themselves across all these geographies, it sapped the strength of the company,’ said Todd Kort, principal analyst.
In 2000, Psion shipped approximately 458,000 units worldwide and 34,000 in the United States. In 2001, it shipped 198,000 units worldwide and less than 10,000 in the Unites States, said Kort.
Psion continues to do business and is focusing on its Teklogix wireless services unit.