SCHAUMBURG (WiMAX Day). On Tuesday Motorola annonced its intent to acquire Symbol Technologies for US$3.9 billion. Symbol is a leader in designing, developing, manufacturing and servicing products and systems used in end-to-end enterprise mobility solutions that require mobile computing, advanced data capture, radio frequency identification (RFID), wireless infrastructure and mobility management.

In the last few months, several announcements from Motorola underscore their commitment to WiMAX and their understanding of the growing market for WiMAX products and services. With the acquisition of Symbol, it illustrates that Motorola understands that the market for WiMAX extends well beyond fast broadband Internet and flashy Q phones.

Commenting on the acquisition, Ed Zander, chief executive of Motorola, said that “the Internet we enjoy today is about to go airborne and the enterprise is also going mobile, and we wanted to be a leader in that space…. There are a lot of opportunities for a WiMAX and Wi-Fi play.”

Mr Zander further commented that the acquisition is: “a dead hit on our goal of seamless mobility”. With products from Symbol, Motorola now has the opportunity to integrate WiMAX technology beyond the mobile phone or lap-top computer. WiMAX can be used to deliver large x-rays and medical data over WiMAX-enabled handsets at hospitals, in navigation systems, supply-chain management and for enabling work-force mobility and public safety.

The majority of wireless products manufactured by Symbol today are store and recover systems, where information is stored in a handset in the field and the data later uploaded to a server. With “seamless mobility” these products could soon connect with a WiMAX network in the field or on the factory floor and more fully enable enterprise solutions for data management and retrieval.

Symbol brings a world-class product portfolio to Motorola. In addition, Symbol has a strong partner network and possesses knowledge and expertise in key verticals including retail, travel and transportation, manufacturing, wholesale distribution and healthcare. Major clients of Symbol include the US Departments of Defense and Departments of Security, FedEx, UPS, Tesco, Deutsche Post, Boeing, GM, Ford and ExxonMobil.

The market for enterprise mobility is significant. In 2005 this market accounted for US$14.6 billion in revenue, and according to Motorola and Gartner, the market is projected to reach US$32.7 billion in revenue in 2007.