Psion has unveiled a new business model “Open Source Mobility” (OSM), with an aim to create new business opportunities for developers, resellers and partners, and enhance its ability to grow and develop its business.
John Conoley, chief executive of Psion, said: “OSM is a significant evolution of our business model and has the potential to completely change the industrial mobile computing market. Open Source Mobility is inspired by many facets of leading business thinking, especially open innovation and open source.”
Psion said that it will fully extend the modular approach to customers and partners in the future developments of modular product platform.
The company said that it will use open, standards-based interfaces and will be able to extend the useful life of products in the field, by replacing defective or obsolescent modules, rather than by replacing the whole product.
By swapping functional modules, instead of replacing the whole device will help in achieving benefits in repurposing devices, reduce repair downtime and optimise device configuration, the company claims.
Psion also signed a deal with BT Global Services to resell its products as part of BT Field Force Automation offerings to enterprise and public sector customers. Under the contract, BT will initially sell Psion’s rugged mobile computers to customers in the UK, Germany and France and the contract is also expected to be extended to other markets in the future.
In addition, in a move to support Open Source Mobility, Psion is also launching an open and online community ‘Ingenuity Working’ to bring its developers, partners and customers closer together to support in sharing and leveraging the company’s IP portfolio with a range of vendors and component suppliers and accelerate open dialogue with its global customer and reseller community.