i-mate is a company selling

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...

-powered devices. The Group was launched by James Morrison, who began his telecoms career at sea designing and installing fiber optic cable systems with Cable & Wireless and was head of the team at O₂ that designed the first

O2 Xda The O2 Xda brand was a range of Windows Mobile PDA phones, marketed by O2, developed by O2 Asia and manufactured by multiple OEMs (mainly HTC, Quanta and Arima). The first model was released in June 2002. The last models came to market in 2008 ...

Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 200 ...

phone and started Microsoft in the mobile software industry. He also selected

HTC HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, s=宏达国际电子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t) or High Tech Computer Corporation, (literally ''Hongda International Electron ...

to be the OEM for the O2 XDA and started them in the mobile handset manufacturing business. He set up i-mate in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

in 2001 to deliver into the corporate market place. imate used HTC as their manufacturing partner for 22 handsets, It was based in

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, wikt:دبي, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the List of cities in the United Arab Emirates#Major cities, most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 ...

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (Middle East, The Middle East). It is ...

, and operated in the UK,

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''O ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

, the U.S. and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

. Imate went on the London AIM Stock Market in November 2005 with a valuation of $350 million at flotation a climbed to a value of $989 Million in 2006, The company closed most of its business in September 2009. James Morrison and i-mate were recognized as the innovators in the mobile handset industry but their demise in 2009 was brought on by the failure of Microsoft to develop their mobile operating system to keep up with

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

iOS and Android OS. HTC stopping being an OEM and becoming a competing brand. The company returned in 2013 with an announcement about a new mobile device that runs on

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...

. The i-mate Intelligent which was supposed to be a 4.7-inch handset running the desktop OS on a

Clover Trail Atom is a system on a chip (SoC) platform designed for smartphones and tablet computers, launched by Intel in 2012. It is a continuation of the partnership announced by Intel and Google on September 13, 2011 to provide support for the Android op ...

CPU with 2GB RAM and 64GB storage, an alleged functioning prototype has never been shown to the public as of November 2017 and after MWC 2013 the device didn't make any further appearance one way or another. In June 2011 it was found that James Morrison had permanently moved to the US and was now cleaning wheelie bins for a living.

Products

From the beginning of its existence in 2001 until fall of 2006, imate sold branded versions of Pocket PCs, PPC phones, and smartphones manufactured by Taiwanese

. In September 2006,

ended this relationship with i-mate (at the same time it cut ties with O₂). This was announced soon after HTC started selling devices under its own brand name in Europe and purchased the PPC/

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whi ...

distributor

Dopod HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, s=宏达国际电子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t) or High Tech Computer Corporation, (literally ''Hongda International Electron ...

which serves

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

and

. Since the end of its relationship with

, i-mate carried devices from other manufacturers, including

Inventec Inventec Corporation (; ) is a Taiwan-based Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) making notebook computers, servers and mobile devices. Originally established in 1975 to develop and manufacture electronic calculators, major customers include Hew ...

and

TechFaith China TechFaith Wireless Communication Technology Limited or TechFaith Wireless (), founded in July 2002, is one of the biggest handset solution providers in China. It employs around 1300 engineers. It has been listed in Nasdaq The Nasdaq S ...

References

External links

EXCLUSIVE: i-mate 'fraud' will run to $15m - CEOFormer employees pursue i-mate through courtsExclusive: i-mate shuts downi-mate CFO denies fraud allegationAll i-mate phonesi-Mate. Mobile phones and smartphones i-Mate - prices and list.
{{DEFAULTSORT:I-Mate Defunct companies of the United Arab Emirates Defunct companies of Scotland Companies established in 2001 Companies disestablished in 2009