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Wikipedia
Smart Technologies (stylized as SMART Technologies) also known as Smart, is a Canadian company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and wholly owned by Foxconn. Founded in 1987, Smart is best known as the developer of interactive whiteboards branded as the “SMART Board” popularly used in education and business.
Smart was founded in 1987 by husband and wife David Martin and Nancy Knowlton.
In 1991, Smart introduced its interactive whiteboard, branded the “SMART Board”.
In 2003, Smart developed and later patented DViT (Digital Vision Touch) technology which was an important feature of the SMART board.
In 2009, Smart filed a patent infringement lawsuit against New Zealand-based Next Window before acquiring the company outright in 2010.
On July 15, 2010 Smart Technologies placed an initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), raising upwards of $660 million. Later that year, several class action complaints were filed against SMART in the U.S. District Courts in New York and Illinois. Filed on behalf of the purchasers of the Class A Subordinate Voting Shares in Smart’s IPO in July 2010, the complaints alleged that the company did not disclose important information prior to the IPO. A settlement was reached in March 2013.
As of the 2011 fiscal year end, SMART Board interactive whiteboards led the interactive whiteboard category with a 63% share in the United States, 44% share in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and 47% share globally.
In 2011, Smart employed about 1,700 people.
In April 2012, amid a declining stock price and sales resulting from decreased school board spending, both Martin and Knowlton resigned from their executive roles at Smart before leaving the board in April 2014.
On December 11, 2012, SMART Technologies announced it would begin corporate restructuring. The company proceeded to lay off 25% of its employees. Then-CEO Neil Gaydon stated that it would save the company approximately $40 million, and cited competition in the market as part of the reason for restructuring.
In 2016, SMART Technologies Inc. was acquired by Fox conn for $200 million.
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, which facilitate wider software, internet (including web browsing over mobile broadband), and multimedia functionality (including music, video, cameras, and gaming), alongside core phone functions such as voice calls and text messaging. Smartphones typically contain a number of metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) chips, include various sensors that can be leveraged by pre-included and third-party software (such as a magnetometer, proximity sensors, barometer, gyroscope, accelerometer and more), and support wireless communications protocols (such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or satellite navigation).
Early smartphones were marketed primarily towards the enterprise market, attempting to bridge the functionality of standalone personal digital assistant (PDA) devices with support for cellular telephony, but were limited by their bulky form, short battery life, slow analog cellular networks, and the immaturity of wireless data services. These issues were eventually resolved with the exponential scaling and miniaturization of MOS transistors down to sub-micron levels (Moore’s law), the improved lithium-ion battery, faster digital mobile data networks (Edholm’s law), and more mature software platforms that allowed mobile device ecosystems to develop independently of data providers.
In the 2000s, NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode platform, BlackBerry, Nokia’s Symbian platform, and Windows Mobile began to gain market traction, with models often featuring QWERTY keyboards or resistive touchscreen input, and emphasizing access to push email and wireless internet. Following the rising popularity of the iPhone in the late 2000s, the majority of smartphones have featured thin, slate-like form factors, with large, capacitive screens with support for multi-touch gestures rather than physical keyboards, and offer the ability for users to download or purchase additional applications from a centralized store, and use cloud storage and synchronization, virtual assistants, as well as mobile payment services. Smartphones have largely replaced PDAs, handheld/palm-sized PCs, portable media players (PMP) and to a lesser extent, handheld video game consoles.
Improved hardware and faster wireless communication (due to standards such as LTE) have bolstered the growth of the smartphone industry. In the third quarter of 2012, one billion smartphones were in use worldwide. Global smartphone sales surpassed the sales figures for feature phones in early 2013.