The deal for Symbol, which makes portable bar-code scanners and customized handheld computers is expected to close in late 2006 or early 2007, pending regulator clearance and approval by Symbol shareholders, company officials said. ”This is a company we’ve been looking at for some time,” Motorola Chairman and Chief Executive Ed Zander said in a conference call from Symbol’s headquarters in Holtsville, New York.

”We really had our hearts set on adding lots of critical mass and critical size inside the enterprise area and today we do that.” Schaumburg-based Motorola said it would pay $15 (E11.85) per Symbol share. That’s 18 percent higher than Symbol’s closing price of $12.71 on Friday, before weekend news reports of an impending deal helped boost the stock to $14.67 on Monday.

In Tuesday morning’s trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Symbol was up 2 cents a share at $14.69 while Motorola was down 7 cents at $24.88. Symbol also produces mobile devices for rugged business environments, as well as equipment based on the emerging wireless technology known as RFID, or radio frequency identification, which is used for inventory tracking and other purposes.

Motorola intends for Symbol to become the ”cornerstone” of the company’s enterprise mobility business, said Symbol president and CEO Sal Iannuzzi. Symbol has about 5,200 workers, and in 2005 reported earnings of $32.3 million (E25.5 million) on sales of $1.77 billion (E1.4 billion). ”This transaction is about growth,” Iannuzzi said.

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