NEW YORK -- In what it called a "sneak preview" of products it will roll out this year, Symbol Technologies Inc. today showed eight devices spanning bar coding, wireless, and mobile computing applications, including a new, rugged digital assistant that can operate in both local and wide area environments.
Alan Marcus, Symbol's vice president and chief marketing officer, said the new products are designed to further advance the company's goal of becoming the preferred supplier of "enterprise mobility solutions" and to enable Symbol to better penetrate such market segments as manufacturing. "Manufacturing is where the big, new investments are going," he said during an interview at a press conference here.
Introduced today were the MC70 Enterprise Digital Assistant; three new mobile computers, including one designed to be mounted on such vehicles as forklifts; a bar code scanner and scan engine; an RFID product; and a wireless switch for integration with IBM's eServer BladeCenter computers.
In introducing the slate of new products, Symbol chief technology officer Lou Steinberg traced what he described as the evolution of enterprise mobility, saying that the ability to capture, move, and manage information has progressed from a centralized model, such as in the mainframe era, to a distributed model in the time of minicomputers, to a highly distributed form today. "Enterprise mobility has been evolving," Steinberg said, "and is expanding by increasing the number of people who interact with information and make decisions on it."
Symbol itself has evolved, too, he noted, from a focus on the retail market, to one that later included the healthcare segment, to today's emphasis on the manufacturing market. The new products introduced by Symbol, he suggested, should be looked at as part of that evolution.
The MC70 Enterprise Digital Assistant, described as a rugged device that combines a mobile computer, mobile phone, scanner, and imager, operates in both wide area and local areas environments. The MC70's predecessor, the MC50, only operated in LAN environments. The MC70, which runs the Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system, ranges in price from $2,195 to $2,845. It can be dropped from a height of four feet without damage, Symbol said.
Brian Viscount, Symbol's vice president of product marketing, Mobile Computing Solutions, said that the MC70 is the latest example of Symbol's strategy of implementing a common platform across its product line based on Microsoft and Intel technologies. "We have re-built our product line off this platform," he said.
The mobile device designed for forklifts, the VC5090 Vehicle/Fixed-Mount Mobile Computer, is described as combining rugged construction, processing functionality, and wireless networking capability to enable real-time data access and collection on forklifts. This product is scheduled to be available this quarter and ranges in price from $4,200 to $4,700.
Associated with the VC5090 is an RFID product also revealed in today's preview. Described as a prototype, the product, designated the RFID-Enabled Forklift Prototype, is designed to be used with the VC5090 and includes Symbol's RFID forklift reader prototype. This product is scheduled to be available in the third quarter.
Also introduced were the MC9090-G/K/S Mobile Computer, the MC9097 Mobile Computer, the LS4278 Bluetooth Cordless Bar Code Scanner, the SE950/955 Miniature Scan Engine, and the WS5120 Wireless Switch, for use with the IBM eServer systems.