By Siobhan Kennedy
Psion Plc is gearing up for a targeted push in the US market and is set to announce a series of strategic sales and ISV partnerships designed to help the handheld PC vendor push its products in the enterprise sector. Psion, which owns 50% of the consumer handheld market in the UK, has enjoyed very little success across the Atlantic so far.
Although the company sells its Series 5 personal digital assistants handheld computers through retail outlets across North America, Claes Bergstedt, commercial director, Psion Enterprise, readily admits the market for the devices hasn’t really taken off. The $500 to $600 category, where the Series 5 sits, doesn’t really exist in the States, he said. Instead, there’s a big market for the smaller, cheaper Palm-type products which cost between $199 and $299.
As Psion doesn’t have a smaller, cheaper product, it’s decided to go all out for the business sector, where Bergstedt claims its new netBook is the first non-Wintel based product in the US to ship with a Java virtual machine (JVM). Bergstedt says that Psion will target the netBook at enterprises that want to provide their employees – notably field sales staff – with a device that has the functionality of a laptop and that can house bespoke (Java-based) vertical applications.
He points to the success (but refused to give revenues) of Psion’s Workabout industrial handheld product – Psion’s only US business offering at present – in the transportation, distribution and manufacturing markets as evidence for a market for Psion’s other products in niche, vertical sectors. A market which he says 3Com, with its Palm handheld computers and Microsoft CE-based devices will not attempt to penetrate. To that end, Bergstedt says it will also roll out its new Workabout RF (radio frequency) device, which shipped last week, in the US. The product enables users to connect their Workabout handhelds to the network wirelessly via base stations. In addition, it plans to add its forthcoming Quantum product to the US line up. The modular device, which will be targeted at the business to business sector, comes with a color screen and a number of different base options including a GSM mobile phone, a built in RF or scanner or even a Java smart card reader.
Bergstedt says the three products – the netBook, Workabout and Quantum, will be sold through Psion’s established US channels and via a number of new partnerships, to be announced in the forthcoming weeks and months. He said the aim was to set up the alliances with ISVs that would sell bundles of Psion’s products into vertical markets. At the same time, Psion will put in place a marketing campaign to create awareness around its brand name with a view to deriving profitable revenues Bergstedt said. It would be wrong to say we’re trying to become a household name in America, he said, this will be a targeted campaign to educate and encourage ISVs, particularly the Java developer community, to embrace Psion’s platform.
He said that Psion’s overarching strategy, both in the UK and the US, was to have a number of leading products in the both the consumer and business market, as opposed to just focusing on one product for each, as has been the case in the past. On top of that, Psion plans to offer a greater number of internet based services. Earlier this week, the company announced its free internet service, Planet Psion, via a partnership with UK internet service provider, LineOne and Bergstedt said users should expect more where that came from in the future. But he denied the company’s push into services was a way of shifting focus from its handheld products, that’s absolutely not the case, there’s no way we’re leaving our core business, far far from it. But a Gartner Group analyst we spoke to says Psion needs to build out its services offerings fast if its to seriously compete with competition from Microsoft’s CE and 3Com’s Palm platforms.
