[Leica] Psion - was "The worst insult..."

[pdzwig at summaventures.com (Peter Dzwig)]

I dd some work with Psion in the mid-90s. I was stunned by the variety of 
PSION-based or -derived systems around: many stores have data collection 
systems 
that were Psion powered, various ticketing systems; many, many warehouses, 
other 
kinds of data loggers and so on. Ruggedised handhelds was then - and is 
still - 
their business. I always thought that the consumer handheld PDAs were a 
sideline. I had one for three or four years and thought it was brilliant.

What killed off the Psion was the  growth in end-user expectations. As 
processor, memory, performance and other metrics rocketed, Psion was unable 
to 
match that within its form factors. They also used a lot of proprietary 
parts 
which soon became obsolescent. To meet the challenge of the portable PC they 
would have ended going head-to-head with the bigger players. They have now 
withdrawn most if not all support and have reverted to their mainstream 
activities. They merged with Canadian company Teklogix to become 
Psion-Teklogix 
a few years ago.

Were they like Leica? (back on topic!) I don't know. Leica's importance is 
quality, history, usability and its position as the pre-eminent rangefinder. 
Its 
downside is corporate inertia, partially disguised as technological inertia 
and 
a blinding desire for perfection. Some of those are similar to Psion; but on 
the 
whole, no; the similarities are fewer than the differences.

Peter Dzwig

PS they are at: http://www.psionteklogix.com/

support for older system is at http://www.mypsion.com/

Didier Ludwig wrote:

> It's not the price that kept me off choosing a Psion in the mid-90ies. 
> They were just too big and overfeatured for a PDA. Most people deed not 
> need to make rocket engineer calculations on their PDA. The top-line Palms 
> costed almost as much, but were smaller and slimmer, and I always 
> preferred the Palm's input system with touch-sensitive screen and writing 
> stick to the Psion's small keyboard. Btw I still use a Palm (-phone, 
> meanwhile).
> 
> Psion has managed theirself out of the business with the leica-lab 
> syndrome (to stay on topic), and by overseeing the trend that PDAs and 
> cellphones are melting together. Instead of starting their own cellphone 
> line (like Palm did with the Treo's), they went into a questionable 
> strategic alliance with cellphone producers who let them fall after they 
> sucked out their knowhow.
> 
> But the Psion OS is still very popular for certain applications. What I 
> know is that the train conductors in the swiss railways have Psion-driven 
> portable computers with inbuilt printer and attached scanner-stick. They 
> can print tickets on the fly, scan tickets on screens of cellphones (it's 
> possible to order and pay a ticket by cellphone, getting it by MMS as a 
> strip-coded attachment) and, of course, check the whole railway timetable. 
> And what I call the "witches armed with a giant Psion" are the charming 
> ladies who put parking tickets under your windshield wiper. They have a 
> similar device like the conductors. And their tiny inbuilt printers work 
> very well, I can tell...
> 
> Didier
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>>the Psion Series 3 was by far the best PDA ever in my opinion,  
>>instinctive software, beautifully made and functional. Killed by  
>>cheaper less effective competition. Many people buy on price alone  
>>and will never know what good value effective items are, even when  
>>they are expensive. I have still never used a PDA as logical:-(
>>A parallel theme to Leica in many ways actually.
>>Frank
> 
> 
> 
> 
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