Symbol to take bite of Trio

Firm plans to buy fellow PDA specialist

Hand-held device maker Symbol Technologies has revealed it intends to buy fellow PDA specialist Trio Security.

Trio's products include user- authentication and single-sign-on software.

The firm also boasts biometric verification and advanced encryption technologies.

The vendor has resolved an investigation by the US Attorney's Office and reached an agreement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that resulted in no criminal charges being filed.

Earlier this month, a warrant was issued by Interpol for the arrest of former Symbol chief executive Tomo Razmilovic.

"The acquisition of Trio enhances our ability to safeguard our customers' mission-critical information," said Todd Hewlin, senior vice-president of the global products group at Symbol.

Jessica Figueras, a senior analyst at Ovum, said security is consistently in the top three considerations for hand-held devices when IT managers are surveyed.

"I do wonder why Symbol has to do security itself when there are so many third-party specialists out there," she said.

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