Navigation app drives location service to success

Mobile location services are beginning to win the favor of consumers and operators. VerizonWireless's BREW-based VZNavigator is a popular location-based service application that allows users to use voice directions to find directions to any address. VZNavigator can also point users to the location of approximately 14 million attractions, landmarks, restaurants and ATMs. At the heart of VZ Navigator is its GPS positioning feature that tells users where they are and what nearby attractions.

Sunit Lohtia, chief technology officer of Autodesk's location-based services, said that because of the US CDMA carrier GPS as their technology to support the E911 program, they have an advantage over GSM, which is not enough to support navigation services. Lohtia also pointed out that, in fact, the early success of CDMA operators in the United States in positioning-based applications prompted European GSM operators to begin to seek similar applications. “Because this type of service has grown in the United States, all European operators are talking about personal navigation services,” Lohtia said.

Although the positioning service has not seen growth, this is not caused by any technical problems. Drew Morin, senior vice president and chief technology officer of TCS, said his company has been conducting accurate location tracking for the 911 since 2001. This technology has existed for many years, but it has only recently been introduced to consumers and businesses.

Lohtia explained that navigation has become a key application for mobile location services for three reasons: the public's reliance on directions provided by sites such as MapQuest and GoogleMaps; the rise of car navigation systems like Garmin and TomTom The mobile phone is inherently a better positioning service navigation platform than the car navigation system.

Lohtia said: "Consumers are accustomed to using these map sites, and are also accustomed to using car navigation systems. But Garmin and TomTom's devices are too bulky to carry around. And it turns out that for many users, trying to put these companies anyway. The removal of mobile terminals is too complicated. The secret is to create a simple personal navigation application system that allows users to not rely on Garmin or others."

Another major weakness of in-vehicle systems is that after a period of time, the data of the street map needs to be updated. The in-vehicle system solves this problem by distributing CDs or asking users to pay for new data uploads. Lohtia said: "Mobile-based devices are hosted on the carrier's network, so they can be updated in real time."

Lohtia said the next step in consumer navigation applications is to enable consumers to create their own maps, just as Google did online through its GoogleMapsmash-up. Autodesk emphasizes that developers must make these personalized map applications easy. Lohtia envisions that these applications will enable users to define their own landmarks, mark the restaurants they have chosen, and make it easy for users to share their maps with friends.

Todd Krautkremer, CEO of Gearworks, said that while the mobile location navigation services for consumers are beginning to look to the future, the benefits of these same application versions for small, medium and small businesses are beginning to emerge. Gearworks uses the BREW platform to combine its small, medium and small business products with VZNavigator. VZNavigator is a customized version of Networks in Motion's AtlasBook application, so they have the same functionality. Gearworks and Networks in Motion leveraged the BREW platform to integrate VZ Navigator, powered by Networks in Motion, into Gearworks' own enterprise location services application.

Krautkremer said: "Our enterprise product, FieldForceManager, includes a BREW extension made by Networksin Motion to integrate their turn-by-turn applications with Verizon's VZ Navigator. If one of our customers uses our Field Force Manager application to find them Once an employee gets the address, they can seamlessly enter the VZ Navigator app to find the way to the address. Our users don't know that they have quit our app and go into another app. BREW The ability to build this combined application gives developers more power."

However, Krautkremer pointed out that the BREW ecosystem is built around the consumer model, making it slightly more difficult for enterprise applications. He said: "The BREW ecosystem excels in promoting a one-to-one relationship between my son and my son (who is interested in downloading mobile games), but it is less useful for a one-to-many relationship. It is the owner's need to deploy and update location service applications for their mobile workers.” Krautkremer said that one-to-many features have been added to their products, although BREW does not currently have this capability.