Levin predicted Psion's new format with integrated voice and data capabilities being developed with U.S. wireless telephone handset maker and communications group Motorola would quickly become a major global mass market. "In a number of years' time everybody will have a pocket internet terminal. Inasmuch as the PC has spread and then the mobile phone has spread, so the pocket internet terminal will go the same way," he said.

Psion and Motorola have a joint team working on pocket Internet terminals, which will be based on next-generation Symbian technology. Development of the first product was progressing well," Psion said in a statement which did not details sums involved. Levin was also reluctant to talk numbers and would only say: "This sort of endeavour has already been anticipated by the market in our forecasts for the coming year".

Shares in Psion were 0.5 percent lower at 3,069 pence by 1250 GMT, having touched 3,200 pence earlier on Monday. It hit a record intra-day high at 3,596 pence on January 18, having spent most of 1999 in a 700-1,000 pence range before rising sharply in the last quarter on investor hopes Psion would spearhead wireless Internet. Analyst Ian Burgess said the Motorola deal helped fulfil expectations and was excellent in three respects.

It provided Psion critical cellular technology just as wireless Internet was about to show dynamic growth; it improved Psion's position in Morth America where penetration had proved difficult in the past; and it underpinned Symbian as the core operating system of next generation devices.