Socket Mobile, Inc.
Socket Mobile, Inc. is a supplier of mobile computing, data capture, and network connection solutions for the business mobility market. It also offers OEM products such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi modules. The company is headquartered in Newark, Calif. and is listed on NASDAQ ().
Corporate Information
History
Socket Communications was founded in 1992 in Newark, California by Mike Gifford and Charlie Bass. The company began with a focus on hardware peripherals for the mobile computing market, and throughout the 1990s primarily developed PCMCIA (PC Card) and CompactFlash card-based devices for adding functionalities such as email, paging, digital phone connections, serial I/O connections, Ethernet, dial-up connections (modem) and bar code scanning to Windows-based computers such as notebook computers, Palm-size PCs, Handheld PCs, and Pocket PCs.
The company became public in 1995.
In 1997, the company co-invented the CompactFlash I/O card standard and began shipping its first CompactFlash product in 1998.
In 2000, the company acquired the firm Third Rail Engineering.
In the 2000s, the company began to offer products with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless technologies, including CompactFlash and Secure Digital I/O cards for adding wireless connectivity to computers. Later the company began offering Bluetooth enabled wireless peripherals, including bar code scanners, a serial I/O adapter, and a GPS receiver.
The company offered its first RFID product in 2004.
Over the years, the company has created hardware peripherals for a variety of computing platforms and operating systems, including Windows, Palm OS, Linux, Mac OS, Symbian OS, and RIM BlackBerry OS.
In 2007, Socket Communications began to operate under the new name, Socket Mobile, Inc. The name change coincided with the arrival of the company's first handheld computing product, the SoMo 650, which runs the Windows Mobile operating system.
Current Executives
- Kevin J. Mills, President and Chief Executive Officer
- David W. Dunlap, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary
- Mike L. Gifford, Founder, EVP, Business Development & General Manager, Embedded Systems Business Unit
- Leonard L. Ott, Chief Technical Officer
- Tim Miller, Vice President, Worldwide Operations