Our Story of Becoming a Mobile Data Capture Company
Our background
Socket Mobile was founded in 1992 with a simple goal: to create tools to enhance the productivity of mobile workers. Back then, we achieved this by focusing on mobile communications such as ethernet, serial communication, and wireless messaging. We delivered these through our industry-leading PC cards (then known by the lengthy acronym PCMCIA).
The advent of mobile data networks in the late 1990s and early 2000s changed the nature of mobile work and the communication needs of mobile workers. This led us to refocus on the nature of our work. To continue to fulfill the needs of mobile workers, we had to change our products.
Our mission is to supply innovative, easy-to-use, and cost-effective data capture tools for people who conduct business on mobile platforms.
Socket Mobile is now a data capture company, first and foremost. We offer a wide variety of durable and customizable mobile devices, award-winning software utilities, and all of the essential barcode, RFID, mPOS, NFC, and data capture peripherals your business needs.
That's a big leap from our humble beginnings, and a lot has happened between 1992 and the present. In that time, we've established ourselves as a well-trusted, industry-leading provider of data capture and delivery solutions. Presently, we have a network of thousands of developers using our software developer tools to add sophisticated data capture to their mobile applications.
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Our values
How did we get here? Well, in part by adhering unflinchingly to our values:
- Customer Focus: We live by and for our customers' success. We want to earn their top-of-mind choice, enhance their final customer experience, and create value through our relationship.
- Excellence: We take pride in what we make and do and value each employee's creativity, talent, ambition, and drive to be his or her best and to achieve superior results.
- Integrity: We are honest and ethical in all our dealings with each other, customers, business partners, suppliers, competitors, and other stakeholders. We say what we mean and mean what we say.
- Accountability: We take ownership and responsibility for our actions and performance. We learn from our mistakes and celebrate our successes.
- Mutual Respect: We value people's differences and diverse opinions, and we treat each other fairly.
Continuous innovation
Our success is due to our continual innovation and evolution as seek to support our customers to the best of our abilities. Along the way, we have had many major milestones. Here are just a few notables:
After our founding, Socket Mobile (or Socket Communications, as we were known then) was primarily a PC Card company. That began to change as the data capture and delivery market quickly evolved. In 1998, we made our first foray into scanning with the advent of our Compact Flash I/O Scan Cards. Two years later, we made another big step: shipping our first Bluetooth CompactFlash card. Both of these technologies were crucial stepping stones. They made the products of the present possible.
In 2004, we found a way to wed these two advancements, introducing our first Bluetooth Bar Code Scanner—a big moment for Socket Communications. This product serves as a foundation, a jumping-off point for much of the work we do today. A few short years later, we changed our name to reflect our focus on mobile technologies, becoming Socket Mobile.
Customers come first
Changes like this may seem trivial, but names are important. They explain to us and to our customers who we are and what we stand for. We designed our logo with both of these questions in mind.
The result: an 'O' supported by the arc of a barcode scanner as a head is supported by shoulders. We endearingly refer to this ‘head and shoulders' as Alfi, or Alfred, when he's in trouble. He represents our customers, which, like the Greek letter Alpha, are always our first priority.
The arc of a barcode scanner beneath Alfi represents our products. The position of this arc is of the utmost importance to us; you could even say that we find our purpose in its location. It serves as a reminder of our mission: to support our customers and the shifting needs of their businesses, enabling them to stay abreast of the marketplace and to do their best work.
Looking ahead, we are eager to continue finding new and innovative ways to fulfill our mission, serve our customers, and do so ethically and in accordance with our values.