Jacky Lecuivre: Tech chief aims for many happy returns to the big league</b>

A Day in the Life: Psion was a dot.com darling before the bubble burst. On its 40th birthday, Jacky Lecuivre is planning to return it to the top

5.30am

It is an early start for Psion's French chief executive Jacky Lecuivre after a rough night. It is the company's 40th birthday and it will celebrate with the launch of a new PDA (translation for technophobes – Personal Digital Assistant), the first since the much lamented demise of the iconic Psion Organiser. "I didn't sleep so well," he admits. "We had some fine tuning to make to some speeches, and I was going over the day in my mind."

Breakfast is with members of his team at the Meridien Etoile, in the centre of Paris. There is tension in the air – a lot is riding on the new gadget and Psion will launch it in front of 350 of its top customers and partners, as well as the obligatory gaggle of media representatives. The company has brought along 120 of its own people to ensure the event goes as smoothly as possible and has booked fully 400 rooms in the hotel to cater for everyone. "We are all a bit nervous and are concentrating on going over speeches and what we have to do during the day," says M. Lecuivre.

8am

Breakfast is over, and final corrections to the agonised-over speeches and presentations are being made. A fleet of mini-buses have ferried the Psion throng to the Louvre museum, where the first part of the extended birthday celebration/launch will take place at its Carousel Le Louvre facility. As Master of Ceremonies, Alex Taylor, an old hand at this game, has been hired, and the doors are thrown open to the guests at 9am. The first act is a run-through of the operation's 40-year history with its chairman and founder David Potter and Rod Coutts, the founder of Teklogix, the Canadian company acquired in September 2000 which has become the company's main business.

Psion is held in some affection by computer gamers of a certain age thanks to its Flight Simulator and Horace series of games for the old Sinclair Spectrum personal computer. Then, of course, there was the Psion organiser, whose replacement will be up next, after a half an hour break to give time for a complete change in the décor of the hall. Psion was, of course, one of the darlings of the dot.com boom, holding a place in the FTSE 100 before falling back to earth with a bump when the bubble infamously burst in 2000. M. Lecuivre, 54, is hoping to haul the company back up to the top, and he certainly talks a good game, as well a former head of sales might.

11am

The audience is back, to find the room all decked out in white. M. Lecuivre is honest enough to admit from where the inspiration for this hails. "It's a bit like Apple, with a white stage and all white furniture, and good lighting, but not too aggressive. The theme is the drive for innovation, new technology and new challenges," he says, explaining that this fits with the new PDA. It will work under a heavy burden, being called the "iKon". Psion makes all sorts of mobile computing gadgets but the iKon, M. Lecuivre says, will be the first PDA proper since the demise of the Psion Organiser, although it could perhaps more accurately be described as a smartphone.

"The funny thing is it was only a few weeks ago that I realised that the Organiser was so iconic," says M. Lecuivre. "It was when I met up with David Potter's brother-in-law for the Rugby World Cup and it was he that told me what an icon it was during the 1980s." M. Lecuivre would like the Organiser's successor to inspire the same loyalty. That could be a tall order because the iKon is a very different beast, being aimed at businesses. The gadget is described as a "rugged PDA" and has been designed to withstand a fearful beating. It is able to work happily even after a 5ft drop on to solid concrete and is being targeted at field staff in occupations where PDAs tend to get broken very easily, such as maintenance engineers.

Interestingly, however, it does not currently offer the Symbian operating system, that was originally developed by Psion. Technology geeks have not been slow to pick up on this, but M. Lecuivre explains that the iKon is primarily aimed at a business market while Symbian better serves individual consumers. He says he is encouraged by the reception given to the iKon, which he refers to as "my baby". "Everybody was very excited by this," he claims.

1.30pm

After a brief coach ride, M. Lecuivre is back at the hotel for lunch where he will spend most of his time fielding questions from journalists. "We have pushed everyone to keep lunch to an hour because we have set up the PTMS on another floor in the hotel." This is a "show" of seven scenes designed to demonstrate Psion's wares. "PTMS is the Psion Teklogix Member Shop. This is a big room looking like a warehouse and store with a lot of racking and pallets and in the seven scenes we demonstrate the products and their applications." Another break is followed by a series of workshops centred around Psion offerings. "I am pleased because the most popular one is for the iKon. We managed to get 240 people through the iKon workshop."

M. Lecuivre can spend only a brief time touring the workshops, however, because he has arr-anged a one-on-one session with a representative from Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer, to discuss the company's RFID – radio frequency identification – product. This enables a product, be it an animal or some other valuable, to be tracked at all stages of its journey. "He had asked for a one-to-one with our best expert and me and it was a very good session. In November, our experts will fly to Seattle to move ahead with this project."

6.45pm

M. Lecuivre heads back to his hotel room to freshen up before the gala dinner being held to celebrate the corporate birthday at the Pavillon d'Armenonville. While most of Psion's operations are in Canada these days, M. Lecuivre says two-thirds of its sales are made in Europe, by contrast with most of its rivals who make most of their money in the US. "That is why we chose to hold the launch and the celebration in Europe. We had the choice of Paris or London and Paris won on cost," he says.

Not that the venue could be considered cheap. Far from it – it was used as a hunting lodge in the 19th century and is right at the top of the range. The dinner kicks off at 8.30pm and at 11pm a gigantic 40th birthday cake is wheeled in. Despite the punishing early start, and several days with little sleep, M. Lecuivre stays on at the dinner until late, not leaving until the dust settles at 1am. "I wanted to spend some time with our people, to undwind and have a celebration drink with them," he says.

The CV

Name: Jacky Lecuivre

Education: French naval academy, Brest; Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers – Electronic Signals and Systems – Aix-en-Provence.

Career: 1973-1985: Navigation officer in French nuclear submarines. 1985-1993: Sales and marketing director for MORS Major Industry and Defence division. 1993-2000: Teklogix country manager for France. 2000-2003: Managing director, Western Europe. 2003-2006: Senior vice-president of Europe, Middle East and Africa. September 2006 – made president of worldwide sales, becoming chief executive just over month later.

Family: Married, three children.

Interests: Vice-president of Pays d'Aix Rugby Club for more than 10 years.