Wednesday interview: Michael Kornhauser of ALK on why satnav is going mobile

location based services

Could the next killer app for mobile phones be satellite navigation? ALK certainly hopes so. The company has been selling its CoPilot Live application for PDAs and smartphones for some time now, but in the latter case it's always been dependent on a separate GPS receiver, which connects to your phone using Bluetooth.
However, developments like GPS-enabled phones and HSDPA networks point to a bright future for mobile satnav, and other location-based services. ALK has certainly come a long way since the 1970s, when it was working with the US government computing routes from Earth to Mars.
"From the start, we've been providing consulting, services or applications that help people get from A to B," says managing director Michael Kornhauser. "Now it's happening on mobiles."

"In the mid-1990s, we took it a step further by attacing a GPS receiver to a laptop computer," says Kornhauser. "At the time, the laptop was the only entity available that had the computing power and memory to do satellite navigation. But we always had a view to ultimately reduce that in size for mobile phones."
From the early days of its CoPilot product, ALK was working closely with Microsoft on the latter's handheld platforms, initially WinCE and then Pocket PC. ALK was to launch the first mobile edition of CoPilot for the Cassiopeia PDA. From there, the company has developed its CoPilot Live product for smartphones, and according to Kornhauser is looking to extend that to more mass-market phones. He also says that CoPilot Live has been built with mobile in mind.
"A lot of navigation systems are either on-board, where all the data is stored on the system, or off-board, where you effectively dial up to a server," he says. "CoPilot Live is something we call hybrid-compliant, so it takes advantage of the tremendous computing power on these smartphones and the diving cost of smart memory, to do all the computing and map storage on-board, but goes off-board for value-added services and other elements of navigation."
How does this work? Well, in most cities, street-level map data doesn't change that much, but information like traffic conditions, weather, speed camera placement is more dynamic, so more suited to being pulled down over-the-air. So how else does a product like CoPilot change between platforms? Is it essentially the same application on mobile as it is on a laptop?
"A lot of the guts are the same, and the product has similar functionality and overall look and feel," says Kornhauser. "But the UI is tweaked fairly significantly for each device. On a tablet, you have up to a 15-inch screen, so you can have a lot more information on there. But then on a Pocket PC, and even more so on a smartphone, it's imoprtant that the information is simple to understand, concise, to the point and can be understood at a glance."
So who uses this stuff, and who picks the mobile over the tablet version and vice versa? According to Kornhauser, the laptop and tablet PC versions of CoPilot Live don't sell that well in Europe, but are popular in the US with people who own camper-vans, as well as professional truckers – who may even go for the fully-fledged FleetCenter version (left). Meanwhile, smaller businesses tend to go for the PDA version, while the smartphone edition appeals more to regular punters.
"We're seeing more and more devices with these capabilities," he says. "It's not just enterprise users who have smartphones any more. Devices like the Nokia N73 and Sony Ericsson W950 are great examples. They're powerful smartphones, yet they also have great cameraphones and video or music capabilities too."
Two big trends that could make mobile satnav more common in the next year are GPS in phones, and HSDPA networks. Nokia's announcement of the N95 yesterday is sure to be the first of many GPS-enabled handsets, which removes the need to have a Bluetooth-connected GPS receiver to use applications like CoPilot Live.
"It's an absolute killer for us," says Kornhauser. "Take a look at the satnav market to date. In Europe, the big push for PDA navigation came when it was first put into a bundle in 2004. Then when that petered off a little bit, the GPS receiver got put into the device itself, and there was another big uptake. It's about having less things to buy, less things to power, and it's cheaper, which naturally gets it out to more people. And we see the same happening in the smartphone market."Meanwhile, handsets like the N95 are also likely to work on faster HSDPA networks. Kornhauser says it's feasible for someone living in, say, Munich to have the surrounding 50 miles of data stored on their device, but when they travel somewhere else, they'll be served the additional local data directly over the air. "You can do those kind of advancements if you can get five to six megabytes of data down to the handset in a reasonable time," he says.
we also... the trucking market or any large vehicle market going for our laptop or tablet. then for a pocket pc, we see a lot of general consumer appeal, and then also enterprise deployment on pocket pcs. companies using them for signatur capture will integratre their signature capture softwate and workforce mobility software. when next job comes in, accept a job, automatically laynch the navigation. so two markets for that, and prosumers buygin connected pocket pcs, eitgher on their own or throgh mobile phone contracts\nand then for smartophone products, especially since out launch or symbian uiq and series 60, seeing a tremendous ammount of consmer appeal, they\'re in high end of consumer market, they\'re smartphones, not low cost devices. a lot of high end consumer demand for thos eproducts as nokia and sony ericssoin\nit is very exciting, we see more and more deices having the capabilities. a lot of the walkman phones have storage card slots in them, so that gets us one step further. more and more processor capabilities in there, 3G, hsdpa, all this bodes v wel for what we\'re trying to do [- provide simple but highly useful satellite navifgation to these mobile phoens, devices you have in your pocket. N73 is a freat example, symbian series 60 3rd edition, latest and greatest, yet has one of the bets cameraphones / video capabilkities on the market. that conceregance right there\nalso sony eric w950, walkman symbiabn uiq phone, again, the kind of convergence of that mass marke walkman feturwswe see bopth those things coming along fairly strong in next year and years forward. we\'ll be first the smartphones will have GPS inbuilt across board, then make its way down to more mass market phones. that of course is an sbsolute killer for us. take a ltook at satmav market to date. in euroep big push for pda naviufgation when first put into a bundle - 2004 - medion in germany created one of the first pda / gps naivifgation bnundles. then when that petered off alittle bit, then gps receiver got put into the device, another big uptake. ad then forget about the pda, we\'re juts making a big bnavufation deviuce. less things to buy, less things to power, costs get rolled in on OEM, so cheaper, which naturally gets it out to more people. becomes more versatile, use it when you\'re rocking around, not just in the car, when you\'re in a taxi! it\'s almost endless.\n",1]
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building the gps inn.othert thing, hsdpa, the networks and capabilities on the devices. while again we expet to continue to use the functionality of on-board, in reality, copilot live doesn\'t care if map data is onboard. can add scenario where 50 miles of data around germany on my device, when i lfly into munich, i have to go somewher 100km away, i serve that additional data, v fast, ubiqitous across the board, no problems with connection. those kind of advancements, not only for the services on top of copilot, but data itself, do map datra ypdated over the air, if you can get 5-6mb of info down in a reasonable time.\nwe expect ... i think everybody acros the oard is seeing large consumer demand, large opp in european omarket for consumer navigation. those elements figureing out if they can be a piece o the puzzle. from ops perspective, but a little bit oif uncertainty, how they can make it successful for their biz, can they compete with high srtreet, able to sell a piece of IT equipment a lot better than an op can. theur angle is to buikld in these services, all you can eat data plans, special offers on monthly tariff - have traffic as additional £5 a month, or build it into your updates you get from the operatoir. building propositions aroudn the data element of copilot, and ability to serve info rthrouth their networjkj on copilot.\nbig advancesi think a lot of it will come around making the navigation system... taking it from something you\'re just using when lost or on holidayu, to something you are really usinfg very day and in various differet aspects of your life. not just when lost, but using it while you are really in every aspect of your life. evven when you\'re not lost, you can still be using the navigation system, or speed camera info which is v important. or when you\'r e not in the vehidle, you can stoll get walking directions through it, oer as a life monitor which gets you where you wanna go, info on the move that has a location tag on it. we see a lot of location based content, or route based content as we would call it. lbs space, where you are, and finding stuff around. but from ALK, not about whwreyou are, but whre you\'re going. we know where you\'re going, how you\'re gonna get you, and we can serve various bits of info alon gthat way.So where do the mobile operators fit in, if at all? Will they launch their own navigation services, or partner with people like ALK, or just keep out of the market altogether? Kornhauser seems to think the second option is most likely, with operators charging customers a set fee per month for, say, traffic information which can be overlaid onto a phone's mapping software. It does seem that there's scope for more of what he calls "value-added services" with this kind of satnav technology.
"We're taking it from something you just use when you're lost or on holiday, to something you use every day in various different aspects of your life," he says. "So you might be using the speed camera information, or getting walking directions when you're not in your car, or getting other location-based content, or route-based content as we would call it. From ALK's perspective, it's not about finding stuff around where you are, but around where you're going. We know where you're going, how we're going to get you there, so we can serve various bits of relevant information along that way."