Psion hurtles off the shelf

A year after the launch of the Psion Series 5, it seemed as if Psion were perhaps getting complacent. Several important features were released later than expected, with the Message Suite available almost six month later than had been announced at the launch, and the 1.1 version of the ROMs still unavailable, three months after they were promised, and with their contents still a complete mystery.

At the launch there was also promised a soft GSM stack for the Series 5; this would enable a Series 5 to connect to a mobile phone with only a cable and software, no need for a PC Card or bulky hip flask PC Card adaptor. The Series 5 really needs this capability, which was demonstrated by TDK over a year ago, to complete against the less bulky Windows CE machines with PC Card support, and some soft GSM stacks of their own. Now TDK have announced products of their own for Windows CE, and have said that they have no plans for a Psion version, saying that if Psion want one, Psion Dacom can develop one.

There was also a lot of fuss made about licensees for EPOC32; several were promised to arrive before the end of the year (1997). Geofox appeared, was disappointing, and Psion said that this wasn't the one they were promising. More recently, Philips have announced a second box add on to their Ilium phone called the Synergy, that runs EPOC 32. The Synergy has the potential advantage that you don't need to always carry it with the phone; but I'm not sure that says anything very positive about the unit. Personally, I'd be more inclined to detach the phone and carry the PDA with me, but the power supply arrangements don't seem to be conducive to this.

Psion PLC, who make the Series 5, is a customer of Psion Software PLC, as are the other EPOC licensees. However, Psion Software has been restructured so that it is jointly owned by Psion, Nokia and Ericsson, with a 40/30/30 split; Motorola have declared an intention to join the party. For some unfortunate reason, the name of the new company will be Symbian (http://www.symbian.com ), which sounds far too much like a typical off-the-shelf company name for comfort.

The emphasis of Symbian will be squarely on Wireless Information Devices, the area where PDAs and phones meet in a shirt pocket. Some of its products are likely to appear as mobile phones, albeit rather smarter than normal, and others should be well configured PDAs with communications capabilities.

The implications are interesting, as the stock market agrees: Psion shares doubled in a short time after the announcement was made at the end of June 1998. Nokia already have a product in this area, the 9000 series, which uses GEOS as an operating system, and Ericsson have a Windows CE HPC product. Although Microsoft have communications capabilities in Windows CE, and it is used as the operating system in at least one mobile phone, they have chosen to major in embedded devices in general, rather than adapting their operating system specifically for communications products.

This move gives Psion the scale of backers to be able to produce a genuine competitor to Microsoft. There is no doubt that they have the technology to thrive as a mobile communications product, with valued input from the Psion Dacom company. I would also go so far as to speculate that intelligent communications devices are a better foil for advanced operating systems than embedded systems. An embedded system needs a less fat operating system, not all the cruft of a PDA or downsized laptop, which is what Windows CE represents, and what Microsoft have to offer. A Wireless Information Device needs to be a PDA first and foremost. What is a shame is that EPOC32 doesn't have the transparency, that air of not a computer, that Newton had to offer.

Words and design by:
Paul Lynch
Last updated: July 6, 1998