QuickCheck: Is it true that the first smartphone was developed in the 90s?

The IBM Simon Personal Communicator on its charging base.

THOUGH smartphones are quite commonplace today, there were also a slew of smart devices that could make phone calls – from various Microsoft Windows-based mobiles to the Blackberry – in the early 2000s.

However, the first smartphone actually came out a lot earlier than that, and the company that made it was not based in Redmond, Washington, nor was its name fruit-based. Is it true that the first smartphone hit the market in the 1990s?