1. An apparatus for collecting and processing information bearing indicia (IBI) comprising: a hand held housing; a converter for converting light reflected off an IBI into IBI signals representative of the IBI; a first processor configured for running a first signal process for processing the IBI signals if the IBI is of a first type; and a second processor configured for running a second signal process for processing the IBI signals if the IBI is of a second type, wherein the first processor and second processor run the first and second signal processes in parallel and independent of each other, and wherein at least a portion of the processing may be achieved via multiprocessing, where different processing threads run simultaneously on the same processor.