Attendees at last month's ProMat Show witnessed realtime marketing at its finest following Motorola's acquisition of Symbol Technologies. Motorola's purchase of Symbol was finalized on the Tuesday of show week, sparking an overhaul of what had been the Symbol booth. After the announcement, Symbol staffers worked through the night to transform their exhibit space. When the show floor opened to conference-goers the following morning, all of the Symbol signage had been dismantled and replaced by Motorola logos.

The $3.89 billion buyout represents the second-largest acquisition ever for Motorola. Symbol will now represent the core of Motorola's enterprise mobility business, positioning the company to take enterprise mobility to a new level. In a message on the Symbol Web site, Sal Iannuzzi, president of Motorola's new enterprise mobility business, says the merger is not an acquisition of savings, but a merger designed to bring products and markets together.

Symbol now becomes a part of Motorola Networks & Enterprise, a business with combined revenue of $13 billion in 2005.