Symbol Technologies, Inc. was an American technology company founded in 1973 and headquartered in Holtsville, New York. The company operated as a public entity (NYSE: SBL) until it was acquired by Motorola, Inc. for approximately $3.9 billion in a deal that closed in January 2007. Subsequently, in 2014, Zebra Technologies Corporation acquired Motorola Solutions' enterprise business, which included the Symbol Technologies product lines and workforce, for $3.45 billion. The Symbol brand and technology portfolio are now part of Zebra Technologies.
As an operating company, Symbol Technologies was a leading manufacturer and supplier of mobile data capture and delivery equipment. The company specialized in products for enterprise customers across retail, transportation, and logistics industries. Its major product lines included handheld barcode scanners, rugged mobile computers, radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, and wireless local area network (WLAN) infrastructure. Symbol played a pioneering role in the development and commercialization of laser barcode scanning and mobile computing technologies.
Symbol Technologies' patent litigation history reflects its status as a technology-focused operating company. The tracked case data shows an even split, with one case as a plaintiff and one as a defendant, which is typical for a company actively developing and defending its own technology. The cases occurred prior to its acquisition by Motorola.
The company's most notable corporate context is its chain of acquisitions. The 2007 acquisition by Motorola folded Symbol's operations into Motorola's enterprise mobility division. The subsequent 2014 sale of this division to Zebra Technologies created a larger player in the enterprise asset tracking and mobility market, combining Symbol's data capture products with Zebra's specialty printing and asset tracking solutions. At the time of the Zebra acquisition, the enterprise business being acquired held approximately 4,300 U.S. and international patents.