Hand Held Products
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Hand Held Products (formerly HHP) manufactures a range of data collection and communication products designed for mobile, on-site, and transaction processing applications.
The current company was created in a merger between the former Welch Allyn Data Collection, Inc. and Hand Held Products, Inc. in late 1999.
Welch Allyn Data Collection was formed in 1972 as a subsidiary of Welch Allyn, headquartered in Skaneateles Falls, New York, and by the 1990s was manufacturing a complete line of handheld bar code readers.
The original Hand Held Products company, established in 1983 in Charlotte, North Carolina, began life as a manufacturer of memory modules for Hewlett-Packard programmable calculators, but quickly came to the industry spotlight that same year, as a package delivery company by the name of Federal Express selected their Micro-Wand portable data collection device to begin its first major proof of delivery system for package tracking.
In 1997, the Hand Held Product's Dolphin portable computer was selected by the United States Postal Service to be part of their own proof of delivery system, although a third party provided the manufacturing for this deal, which was the largest single order in the history of the industry - 300,000 units.
Since the merger in 1999, the company has maintained its company headquarters in NY.
HHP has a significant presence in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, where it's European repair center is based, as well as offices in the UK & other countries.
As of January 1, 2005, the company dropped HHP as its brand name and returned to its previous name Hand Held Products. (The legal company name has always been Hand Held Products, Inc.)
[edit] Products
Many of HHP's products are barcode readers and scanners, some of the most modern of these include the 9500 and 7900 series pocket computers.
The specification of these is as following:
- Microsoft Windows Mobile Edition 2003
- Large XVGA Touch Screen
- 128mb RAM with 24mb 'IPSM' ROM-Like storage (this is classed as a removable device, which can have files easily added to using Activesync, which the unit uses on first boot to install specificed programs and configure customer specific settings)
- SD Card reader
- The processor varies, but is approximately around 300Mhz and manifactured by AMD
- Wireless LAN 802.11b (WiFi), Bluetooth & Infra-Red can all be built in, depending on customers requirements.
- Adaptus Imager with or without laser targeting
- Full Alphanumeric & Numeric-only keyboard versions available
The 9500 computer also integrates GSM & GPRS (Mobile Phone) functionality when a SIM card is inserted.
Their primary selling point is the barcode reader (a small digital camera like imager), full keyboards for easy data entry and extremely robust metal casing, for heavy use in warehousing and delivery applications. The protective casing, theoretically means the unit 'can be dropped from up to 14ft to concrete' without damage occurring.
