Editing Psion (company) (section)

=== Symbian and telephony (1998) {{anchor|Symbian and telephony}} ===
The 32-bit EPOC developed by Project Protea resulted in the eventual formation of [[Symbian Ltd.]] in June 1998 in conjunction with [[Nokia]], [[Ericsson]] and [[Motorola]].<ref name=history /> The OS was renamed the [[Symbian OS|Symbian Operating System]] and was envisioned as the base for a new range of [[smartphone]]s. Psion transferred 130 key staff to the new company and retained a 31% shareholding in the spun-out business. By 2007, the Symbian operating system powered around 125 million mobile phones, including many Nokia models and the [[Sony Ericsson P900]] series.

Psion had previously sought to expand into mobile telephony itself, having engaged in talks to acquire [[Amstrad]] – mainly for its Dancall subsidiary – in 1996. Although Amstrad's owner and founder, Alan Sugar, had reportedly been seeking to sell the entire business, no agreement could apparently be made on a price or on "a plan for the disposal of the other parts of the Amstrad Group". This setback left Psion promising "to introduce GSM-based products during 1997". Meanwhile, Psion did license EPOC to [[Digital Equipment Corporation]] so that the system could be ported to Digital's [[StrongARM]] processor.<ref name="acornuser199610_amstrad">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser173-Oct96/page/n8/mode/1up | title=Psion, StrongARM, GSM and the Amstrad factor | magazine=Acorn User | date=October 1996 | access-date=1 July 2022 | pages=9 }}</ref>

The development of new and updated products by Psion slowed after the Symbian spin-off. Other products failed or had limited success; these included Psion Siemens' GSM device, a Series 5 based [[set-top box]], the [[Psion Wavefinder|Wavefinder]] [[Digital Audio Broadcasting|DAB radio]], and an attempt to add Dragon's speech recognition software to a PDA. Ericsson cancelled a Series 5MX derived smartphone project in 2001.

Psion had sold its sole manufacturing plant in 1999 and started to withdraw from its PDA markets in late 2001,<ref>
{{cite web
| first= Mark
| last= Needham
| title= We Remembered Psion and Wept
| date= February 19, 2004
| publisher= PC Pro
| url = https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B2I-pNO-pfhoMjk5MTkwZTgtMzFmNC00NWRhLTg3YTQtYzVlYjNmNWQ1YzM3&hl=en_GB
| access-date = 2012-02-22
|format=PDF}}</ref> shedding 250 of 1,200 staff and writing-off £40 million. The PDA, which was once a niche market, had become a global horizontal marketplace where it was difficult for Psion to compete. The final blow for Psion's Organiser and PDA business came in January 2001 when Motorola pulled out of a joint project with Psion, Samsung, and Parthus, to create "Odin", an ARM-based PDA-phone.<ref name= history/>

In 2000, Psion acquired [[Teklogix]] of Canada for £240 million, and merged its business-to-business division, Psion Enterprise, with the newly acquired company. Teklogix was rebranded [[Psion Teklogix]], and this division formed the core of Psion Plc's business.<ref>{{cite news
| title= Psion buys Teklogix
| date= 2000-07-12
| url =http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/830005.stm
| work = BBC News
| access-date = 2008-12-27
}}
</ref>

In 2002, Psion launched the Psion Software division. This business developed [[push email]] solutions for Symbian smartphones, [[Microsoft Exchange Server|Microsoft Exchange]] and [[Lotus Notes]]. This business was sold to Visto of the United States in 2003.

In 2004, Psion disposed of the company's remaining Symbian shareholding to Nokia, as they no longer regarded it as a core part of their strategy.<ref name=history/>