Motorola To Acquire A Symbol

Did this ever come out of left field. C|Net is reporting (Link) that Motorola is buying Symbol Technologies. I’ve followed both companies for over a decade; having had friends who worked as designers at Motorola (including fellow CIA alumnus Frank Tyneski who, last I heard, was the Director of Design Integration at Research In Motion – the Blackberry company) and an old business acquaintance, Curt Croley, who is/was Manager of Industrial Design at Symbol. Symbol is also the company that swallowed an old client, Telxon, for whom I did design work in the mid-90’s. Even so, I’ve never considered the two companies merging. This is a big deal. What happens when a technology powerhouse like Motorola – which happens to also be a major cell phone manufacturer – gets access to Symbol’s RFID technology (and their patents)? I’ll have to take some time to wrap my head around this one.