Motorola and Psion cross license for Quartz

Justin Pearse ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 01 Mar 2000 16:29 GMT

Strengthening its commitment to Symbian, Motorola on Tuesday signed a cross-licensing deal with Psion (quote: PON) to enable a new range of wireless devices based on Symbian's Communicator platforms.

Motorola will license Psion's GSM tri-band communication module, which will provide future Psion devices with wireless connectivity. In return, Motorola will license Psion's Halla processor.

The StrongARM Halla processor has been optimised for the Symbian platform and, according to a spokesman, is three times more efficient than Psion's current processor. The two companies announced in January their intention to develop products based on the Symbian platform, which are expected to ship in Q2 next year.

As part of the deal, both companies may further develop the respective technologies for use in products outside of their joint development agreement.

John Steadman, vice president for strategic alliances at Motorola, stated that the alliance "would enable both companies to meet consumer demand for cutting-edge mobile devices".

The cross licensing agreements will lead to a variety of mobile Internet devices from the two companies, based on the first of Symbian's reference designs, codenamed Quartz. The design includes jotter, contacts, PIM, messaging applications, WAP, Bluetooth and Java integration.

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