Location Based Services – April 25, 2008

Robert Duffner Interviews Chris Kemp, NASA, and Kevin Jackson, NJVC, on GovCloud

By G C Network | November 7, 2010

Recently, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mr. Robert Duffner, director of Product Management for Windows Azure, as part of his “Thought Leaders in the Cloud” series. In this interview,…

NJVC, Invertix Announce Cloud Computing Demonstration at GEOINT 2010

By G C Network | November 2, 2010

VIENNA, Va. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — NJVC®, one of the largest providers of information technology (IT) solutions to the U.S. Department of Defense, and Invertix Corporation, a proven technology company…

On The Frontlines: Cloud Computing in Government

By G C Network | October 27, 2010

Today, Trezza Media Group released the latest installment of it’s “On The Frontlines” series of government technology reports. The “On The Frontlines” Publications are dedicated to showcasing the positive progress…

GSA Awards Eleven US Federal IaaS Contracts

By G C Network | October 20, 2010

According to Federal News Radio, GSA awarded eleven vendor spots in the first Federal cloud infrastructure-as-a-service award. The winners were: * Apptis Inc. partnered with Amazon Web Services* AT&T* Autonomic…

NIST To Hold 2nd Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop

By G C Network | October 15, 2010

On November 4-5, 2010, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will hold their second Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop. During this event, NIST will report on the status of federal…

“On The Frontlines” Interview

By G C Network | October 5, 2010

Look out for  “On The Frontlines: The Government Cloud” scheduled for release in November 2010! Trezza Media Group provides high-quality thought leadership media and marketing services to help companies connect…

Yongsan Army Garrison Does Cloud Computing!!

By G C Network | September 24, 2010

First Signal is ready for the cloud ! Even with the time constraints of the Chusok holiday and the onslaught of a 100-year flood, the class soldiered on with five…

Army Cloud Computing in Korea!

By G C Network | September 19, 2010

After a long uneventful flight, I’ve arrived at Yongsan Army Garrison in Soeul Korea. After enjoying the economy accomodation on a Boeing 777 for over 14 hours, my room and…

The Taiwan GovCloud

By G C Network | September 11, 2010

Last week, Henry Kenyon of Federal Computer Week reported that the Taiwanese government is planning to spend $744M to develop cloud computing technology. Premier Den-yih Wu sees this as a…

Geospatial Cloud Computing In Support Of National Policy

By G C Network | August 29, 2010

A few weeks ago I once again had the pleasure of participating in a private discussion on cloud computing with Mr. Vivek Kundra.  What struck me in this most recent meeting was his views…

INmobile.org is a exclusive community for executives in wireless industry. As a member, I have the opportunity to participate in a number of interesting discussions about mobile and wireless technology. Here’s a summary of the points made in a recent discussion about location based services. Thanks goes to Adam Zawel for this excellent summary.
CARRIER’S ROLE
While no one suggests that operators should EXCLUSIVELY focus on their own location-based applications, there is debate about how fully the carriers should embrace the open 3rd party route:
Ashish Thomas from Singapore Telecom agrees with Walt Doyle of uLocate:
“the business models are simply not there yet to merit or justify one route or another…if a carrier goes the third party way there is fear of losing (or diminishing ) a potentially large revenue source”
Lloyd Williams from NewStep Networks adds:
“…High volume services with relatively generic functionality that can be applied across a broad base of users is ….[the operators’] sweet spot. Highly customizable applications are more of a challenge and therefore the internet model works better.Most comments, however, focus squarely on the value to carriers (and especially the ecosystem overall) if carriers focus on location as an “enabler”,
Asais Sudit, CEO of LOC-AID Technologies says:
“Inter-carrier raw location data, along with some additional attributes, will create the necessary ecosystem for third party developers/channels to make location an indispensable part of mobility.”
Tony Rose from Drop In Media adds:
“…opening up the location API’s to developers and create a competitive environment where the best applications will float to the top.”
Matt Kapp, CEO of Ozmota says:
“Location is a key variable to many innovative applications, including the ability to create new marketplaces from the virtual representation of space.”
Larry Corvari (a regional U.S. service provider executive) says he wants to provide
“open access via a standard set of published web objects” and support his enterprise customers with presence and LBS capabilities.”
Paul Nerger, dotMobi suggests
“If I was an operator, I would open up and start by publishing my data via OpenCellID.”The carriers can provide value on top of a free or low priced location API service:
Matthew Roth from StudioComm (WPP agency) says:
“… it makes much more sense to open up the location APIs and charge for access to the demographic data of the subscriber.… combined with lat/long within a mobile web or SMS based campaign would provide the necessary catalyst for brands and marketers to embrace mobile in the same ways they now embrace the Internet.”….In any case, the ecosystem may not wait around for the carriers too much longer:
Kevin Jackson of Sirius Computer Solutions:
“Absent industry-wide cooperation and adoption of an open source philosophy, competition and consolidation will force many carriers to fail.”
Ole Jakob Thorsen, Arctic ApS CEO describes a start-up solution that can turn Kevin’s warning into reality.
“…any service provider with access to user SIM cards can build any type of LBS without even telling the operator about it”
Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson

G C Network