Location-Based Services

It would be an understatement to say that the industry is lukewarm about wireless location-based services. The main reason: Carriers invested billions into getting their networks E-911 compliant and are now trying to recover those costs from a LBS market that many analyst firms project won't be generating more than tens of millions in the next few years. But despite that gap, carriers are deploying location-based applications with regular frequency, and though pure-play LBS applications like car navigation systems and telematics may not be the hottest sectors, consumer and business apps with location-based elements are becoming crucial to most carriers' service offers.

Landmat

Landmat has built its applications business around a variety of location-based gems: PalTrak does what its name implies — locates friends connected to the mobile network and arranges meetings, identifies meeting places, even keeps track of the children. DateTrak is a similar service with advanced messaging and more controlled tracking features built in. And its co-branded Time Out Mobile service links Time Out's reams of listing and entertainment content to Landmat's navigation system.

Xora

Xora has built the ultimate Big Brother technology for wireless devices, allowing companies to track their employees' time sheets, jobs and physical locations using GPS-enabled phones.

MapQuest

One of the most recognizable brands on the Internet, MapQuest has brought its mapping functionality in full to the wireless network, adding location-based features and even voice-recognition technology.

Aeroscout

Aeroscout is combining Wi-Fi and RFID to create a multipronged asset-tracking application. RFID tags transmit to a Wi-Fi network providing real-time location information, and separate sensors located at doorways or other choke points identify those tags as they pass by and create alerts that are sent back through the network.

F-Secure

As the enterprise network pushes out to mobile devices, so do network viruses and other security risks. F-Secure is developing anti-viral and firewall software specifically for smartphones.

Sproqit Technologies

Sproqit has developed an embedded thin client that allows handset users to remotely control their desktop applications while on the go. Instead of building a Web-based client that only works when a user is online, Sproqit developed a client-server model that allows users to manipulate their desktop applications and data even when their handsets aren't connected to the network.

Addesso Systems

Addesso hasn't created an application per se but instead an application development environment that allows vertical industries and enterprises to build custom business applications for smartphones and PDAs and deploy them quickly over a corporate network.

Tatara Systems

Though more a service provider than an end-user application, Tatara's Mobile Services Control Platform allows subscribers to maintain links to their enterprise data networks even when roaming across other carriers networks — while keeping a single billing relationship with their home carrier.

Intellisync

Intellisync has long been the dominant link between the desktop and the PDA, but its developments in wireless have gone far beyond basic PIM synchronization. Intellisync now has a whole new host of applications that not only update contacts and download e-mail, but also distribute documents over the air, lock down handsets and push new applications across a whole network.

ON THE WEB

For more information on Intellisync, click on the story “Synchronization in a Few Broad Strokes.”
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