Berkeley, CA - June 30, 2008 - Apisphere, Inc., a leading provider of location-awareness services for mobile business applications, today announced it has been selected as one of nine companies to participate in the second phase of the Sierra Wireless - Wavefront Developer Program. The program provides Apisphere with the opportunity to develop a customized application for users of Sierra Wireless mobile broadband adapter products.The Sierra Wireless - Wavefront Developer Program is designed to find best-in-class enterprise or consumer applications that take advantage of the mobile broadband and GPS capabilities built into Sierra Wireless PC cards, ExpressCards, and USB modems. The program started with an open invitation to submit written applications in all sectors of the developer community, including location based services (LBS), new media and social networking. The second phase narrowed the 50 submissions to nine finalists who are creating working prototypes of the proposed applications.
“Apisphere is enabling mobile devices with location-awareness services and we are honored to be among the top nine companies participating in this program,” said Craig Harper, CEO, Apisphere, Inc. “The Sierra Wireless - Wavefront Developer Program is an outstanding opportunity for Apisphere to demonstrate its technical expertise to an industry leader.”
Apisphere is designing an application based on its Geo-Enabled Mobility (GEM) platform that will bring location-awareness functionality to Sierra Wireless products to significantly enhance the productivity and efficiency of businesses that depend on mobile applications. Based on a Software-as-a-Service model, the application will be scalable and easily customized to support the unique requirements of different businesses.
The Sierra Wireless - Wavefront Developer Program is also supported by NAVTEQ and DigitalGlobe, which have provided tools and access to data to assist participants in developing their prototypes. Winners will be selected in October and will be considered for promotional consideration and incorporation within Sierra Wireless products, which are distributed by mobile network operators worldwide.
I received an automated call from a delivery company the other day stating that a package would be delivered to my home the following day between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Knowing I couldn’t wait around for 10 hours for the delivery, I kept listening to my options. They were not much better: First, I could wait around for the same 10-hour period the next day. Secondly, in spite of someone having paid to deliver this package to my house, I could pick the package up at the company’s closest location which is 45 minutes from my house.
Are they kidding? Does this delivery company really think that people have 10 hours to sit around and wait for a package? With today’s technology and at the dawn of the location awareness age, delivery companies like UPS, Fedex, DHL, etc. should have the ability to provide more realistic notification windows. Don’t get me wrong, some companies have joined this century and are embracing the available technologies to offer better estimates, but too many are old school and providing 10 hour windows that are nothing more than a burden to most people.
I’m not suggesting deliveries be made directly to me. I don’t expect them to know where I am and adjust the delivery location to match my current location automatically. As impractical as this idea is, with today’s location awareness tools, it is definitely possible. The technology exists for delivery companies to notify me when my package is a set distance from my home to alert me to head home immediately. My current location and my package destination can be matched, mapped, routed and adjusted for traffic to my package reaches its destination on time, without causing me to spend hours sitting at home waiting.
Any delivery company looking for a competitive edge or wanting to roll out the next greatest application should consider re-evaluating the location awareness technologies being used in their services. Imagine being automatically notified of the exact time a package will be delivered and precisely how far away it is from you - taking traffic and weather interruptions into account - to ensure we don’t miss the package. Or better yet, having a package delivered to exactly where you are - the office, the gym, lunch - by matching your package and mobile device locations.
For now I would be satisfied with a more reasonable delivery window of two or three hours…but I can’t wait to see this industry start leveraging the available technologies.
We just read a very insightful blog entry from Om Malik in which he speculates quite positively on the uptake of location-based-services (LBS) in 2008 and beyond. In fact, he feels that he has been too conservative in the past, and he is now even more bullish on LBS….simply because of the huge numbers of mobile handsets that are being shipped annually. Of course, there are many other factors at play that are driving the adoption of LBS and related mobile applications in this extremely dynamic market.