Frank Canova

Frank Canova (Francis James Canova Jr., born 23 December 1956) is an American electronics designer who originated the idea for the IBM Simon, a handheld device combining a telephone with personal organizer functions, and for that reason he is often described as the inventor of the smartphone. He grew up in Florida and earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the Florida Institute of Technology in 1978. While working at IBM he saw that chip and wireless technology had become small enough for a handheld device, and with his manager Jerry Merckel and a team gathered by Paul Mugge he built the prototype code named Angler for the November 1992 COMDEX trade show in Las Vegas, where it drew wide attention. IBM sold it as the Simon from August 1994, and a patent naming Canova and other team members followed in 1995. In 1997 he joined Palm as head of engineering for the PalmPilot and its successors, and he later held senior engineering posts at several other technology companies.