Point-of-sale and PDA player Psion Teklogix will roll out an aggressive lead-generation program later this year as it begins pushing its new Windows CE .Net-based devices and seeks to grow its channel sales to 50 percent of revenue.

The Mississauga, Ontario-based vendor will continue to augment its new Ascent program for solution providers and plans a reseller conference later this year, rollout of a new extranet and lead generation, executives said.

New handheld is based on Windows CE .Net.

Christian Rogers, director of sales and marketing at Psion Teklogix, said the company has also established a development fund that will provide capital for solution providers to port legacy applications to the vendor's platforms in a bid to bring them,and solution providers' customers,into the fold.

"If you've got a core application and you want to port it over, the company will pay some of the development costs," Rogers said. He declined to specify the amount of funding available, but said the company is looking to spend it on a case-by-case basis when a solution provider demonstrates a commitment to the platform.

The company now has about 100 authorized resellers in North America, which make up 20 percent of Psion Teklogix's revenue. Rogers said the company is seeking to increase its overall revenue and have the channel account for 50 percent of those sales.

Psion Teklogix's product line has branched out to include a lineup of hardware based on Microsoft's Windows CE .Net operating system. Those products include its 7535 handheld device based on Intel XScale processors and Windows CE .Net. Pricing varies depending on a device's feature set and bundled software. The vendor is also positioning its netpad tablet devices, based on 802.11b or GSM/GPRS radio transmission, for solution providers.

"We've gotten a few leads from them," said David Sousa, president of Montego Systems, a Fairport, N.Y.-based solution provider and Psion Teklogix partner. Sousa said he prefers Psion Teklogix's channel model, which bypasses distributors and cuts down on time-to-market issues. "They've been very responsive as things have come up," Sousa said. "They've responded to get me equipment a lot faster than otherwise would be. A few weeks ago, [the shipping company] smashed a box with three access points in it. They were able to get me another set in a few days."