Symbol Technologies

Two physicists started the firm in New York in 1973, beginning with barcode wands. The breakthrough came in 1980 with the first handheld laser scanner: a sweeping beam meant the operator could aim at a code instead of dragging a pen across it at a steady speed. The next step was building the scanner into a portable data terminal with a radio link — the gun still hanging off every warehouse shelf.

In 1991 the company produced PDF417, the stacked two-dimensional symbology, and placed it in the public domain. That is exactly why it now sits on driving licences, shipping labels and boarding passes. Motorola bought Symbol in 2007 for around four billion dollars; in 2014 Motorola Solutions sold the whole enterprise division on to Zebra Technologies, which thereby bought its way into the reading side of the same business.