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Hardware - Monday, December 27, 2004

Motion Computing - Profile

HQ: Austin, TX

Founded: May 2002

Management: There's a reason HQ is in Austin - the entire management team has been born and raised at Dell. CEO Scott Eckert was Founder and GM of Dell Online as well as GM of international divisions for Dell in the UK, Ireland, and Brazil.

Investors: Company Raised $25M in December 2004 led by Institutional Venture Partners with New Enterprise Associates, SVB Capital and G-51 Capital. Previously the company closed $6.5M in Series A funding in 2002 and $11.2M in Series B funding in 2003.

Business Model: Company sells tablet PCs, particularly into vertical markets like healthcare. Selling points are low price, and what has been called the best screen available. Gateway private labels Motion Computing's product.

The M1400 - In All Its Glory

Competitors: HP Compaq, Viewsonic, Acer, Fujitsu.

Dirt: Oh boy, tough market and it defies logic that a company can thrive by just building tablets - no PCs, no servers. But Motion seems to be working. There is very little venture activity in hardware - knuckle-bumps to these guys for even trying.