GPS World, May 2009

BUSINESSOUTLOOK Hitting the Mainstream C ontributing editor Janice Partyka reported that Location was forward front and center at this years Mobile World Congress MWC in Barcelona the largest cellular phone industry show in the world Companies are finally acting like they believe that there is money to be had in knowing where people are or as the industry likes to say applications with contextually relevant user experience She talked with Kanwar Chadha founder and vice president of Marketing for SiRF Technology about the show Janice Partyka What was different about the treatment of location at World Congress this year Kanwar Chadha I have been visiting the MWC for almost a decade now GPS location based services LBS and location technology in general moved from the backburner to center stage this year JP When did GPS start getting traction among the GSM community at the World Congress KC I started to see a clear change in the coverage of GPS at the 3GSM Congress in 2006 There were multiple reasons for it but a few stood out Major operators in the United States were starting to deploy LBS and use it as a differentiator Personal navigation devices PNDs began to have impact on the mainstream consumer space and operators saw navigation as a potential revenue generating application GPS silicon technology had solved the key fundamental issues for integration into handsets The last piece of the pie was that smartphone innovators were starting to integrate GPS into their products In 2006 07 RIM made GPS a key feature of the BlackBerry platform and Nokia bought gate5 and Navteq indicating a major commitment to location services These developments led GPS and location to start becoming mainstream at MWC When I participated on the Location Services Panel in 2008 it was a standing room only crowd JP How have new devices and mobile platforms influenced the uptick in location KC GPS and location services also became cool thanks to iPhone and Google Android It was good to see that location and GPS were one of the key highlights of the conference this year with Nokia clearly taking a leadership role and demonstrating a Å Kanwar Chadha left and John Quigley right senior VP general manager of SiRFs Wireless Business unit broad range of location enabled applications targeted at mainstream consumers Garmin Asus launched a location centric nüvifone platform As I roamed the show floor I found that most of the interesting new phone platforms especially smart phones and high end feature phones had GPS as a key feature and it is almost taken for granted I also saw many more content providers taking advantage of location capabilities of the assisted GPS AGPS phone platforms Nokia Sports Tracker a GPS based activity tracker bagged the prize for Best Mobile Internet Service at the Congress Global Awards 2009 JP How did you spend your time at the World Congress before the GSM carriers became interested in GPS KC In my discussions with GSM operators most of the time was spent explaining the benefits of GPS over other location technologies and why a killer LBS application was not a requirement to build a profitable model for deploying location services Many operators in Europe had been burnt by deploying cell ID based LBS and were reluctant to take risks with GPS Most of the handset vendors were concerned about the cost size and power constraints of adding GPS to mobile phones and were not seeing any pull from operators Many of the LBS content and application providers were gone in the 2000 Internet bust It was a lonely world for companies like SiRF who were evangelizing GPS and location enabled services to the mobile phone community The foundations for bringing GPS to the mainstream mobile phone platforms were created at that time I was so excited when Benefon a small mobile phone vendor out of Finland highlighted GPS as a differentiator for its GSM phones at the 3GSM Congress in early 2000s JP Any last thoughts KC In short my general impression of the 2009 Mobile World Congress was that after many years of talk about the year of GPS and LBS GPS powered location technology and location enabled services have finally hit the mainstream mobile phone industry FOR A FREE SUBSCRIPTION to Janice Partykas monthly Utilities Communications Pulse newsletter visit www gpsworld com subscribe Most interesting new phone platforms especially smart phones and high end feature phones have GPS as a key feature It is almost taken for granted GPS World May 2009 www gpsworld com 18