Location-based services will help with wireless growth


5 June, 2007By Vanessa HoIn marketing, it's all about location, location, location but in the world of technology the same is also true. The increase use of location-based services (LBS) technology in the enterprise space is growing in popularity, not only to help businesses with asset management, but also improve productivity.
"Over the past year and even the past few months we've seen a dramatic development where Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are taking a hold in wireless and WLAN devices and embedded GPS [have] spurred LBS," said Lawrence Surtees vice president, of communications research with IDC Canada.
He added that LBS applications have been around for a number of years in the consumer world but in the enterprise space, it's been predominately focused on asset control, vehicle fleet management, sales force automation and CRM systems.
"Commercial services [are the ones] that are [going to] make use of LBS in the wireless space," said Surtees. "LBS applications have taken a hold in its own right and in the U.S., LBS revenue forecast will go from just shy of $50 million in 2005 to $3 billion in 2010," he added.
Surtees was just one of the speakers at the MaRS Emerging Technology series event, held in Toronto, entitled: "Location! Location! Location! The Growing Market for LBS." LBS is about getting the right information or customized information to the right people at the right time.
Tyler Lessard, director of ISV alliances with Research in Motion (RIM) Ltd., said that another reason why LBS applications have gained in popularity is because users are ready for it.
"With the rise of SMS and wireless e-mail, people are now taking it for granted that they've got wireless e-mail. People are [now] waiting for the next wave of what else can I do with this device," he added.
The majority of enterprises are using LBS with their voice and data handhelds that have GPS embedded onto it to do such things as asset tracking. Mobile field service application followed a close second in terms of enterprise usage.
"There are many smart phones and PDA that now offer support for accessing GPS location. We are starting to see vendors not just build generic services and applications deploying GPS on cellphones [but] see a generation of tailored products for particular devices or for different types users," said Lessard.
The type of applications that enterprises are using LBS for include turn-by-turn navigation that alerts about traffic jams or even suggests restaurants to take clients to. As well, aside from asset management and field service automation, enterprises are using LBS for sales force automation, tracking employees on the road and industry specific services.
Verticals that can benefit the most from LBS include health care, real estate, government and the public sector.
But Lessard said there are some barriers to LBS adoption.
"[Companies] are worried about integration of the mobile system with corporate back-office systems and the cost of the mobile hardware and software is perceived as too high," he said.
To overcome some of those barriers, RIM relies on its channel partners such as Wallace Wireless to help companies realize the benefits of LBS.
"It's a process for the enterprise," said Rob Moffat, president and co-founder of Wallace Wireless. "We find that it takes customers about 18 months [after] using a Blackberry for email before they are ready to adopt any kind of new applications," he added.
In order to ease them into LBS, Moffat said he doesn't lead with it when talking to customers but instead leads with context sensitive information that's about getting the right information at the right time.
"If LBS applications are a piece of it then you can bring in LBS and often times the information is tied to a location and that's how LBS applications become a part of [the discussion]," said Moffat.
He added that right now LBS in the enterprise is in the early adopter phase and doesn't expect enterprises to fully embrace the technology at least for another three to five years because of all the privacy issues surrounding it.
"We find that people fears of being tracked are obvious but when you get to the executive level at large Fortune 100 companies they all want to be tracked and companies want to track them [because] they are going to places they not comfortable with and don't know a lot about them," said Moffat.
If there is a lesson to be learned from the emergence of LBS applications, Lessard said it's that enterprises are ready to turn their handheld computing devices into competitive differentiators to help them reduce cost and increase revenue.