June/July 2003

If you're a developer working on mobile navigation and mapping systems, you might well be interested in a new proposition from Webraska, the big French-based specialist in Web-based navigation and tracking systems. It has just mounted a bid to gain a key role in supporting third-party navigation, tracking and telematics systems.

The company's new product, which as been given the generic name SmartZone Navigation Suite, is built round its established IbDN (Internet-based Distributed Navigation) technology, which uses the Web to deliver navigation-related information to users.

It is described as an "on-the-shelf" system, meaning it is not complete in itself, but it aims to deliver a complete solution set to developers. It is made up of various components such as ready-made applications and software development kits (SDKs), which the company says can be used together to create and deploy wireless turn-by-turn navigation applications.

The most basic component is SmartZone Navigation for PDAs - a real-time navigation application for Pocket PC platforms with a fully customisable graphical user interface.

 

Alongside this comes SmartZone Navigation Duo, which is aimed at the fleet management sector. This can generate real-time navigation instructions from map data stored either in an on-board device or on a remote server. It is delivered as a DLL (dynamic link library) file for integration into other applications.

A more complete development kit is offered by SmartZone Navigation SDK, which is available in C++ and Java OSGi versions and allows users to integrate IbDN into their own wireless navigation applications.

There is also a special vector map SDK, which is supplied as an ActiveX control, and helps users develop despatch or mobile applications that use vector map data. It also facilitates integration of mapping and routing features into mobility, tracking or fleet management applications. Finally, there is a navigation application for Microsoft's SmartPhones.

Among early users is Grizzli Mobile Systems, which has just signed a contract to equip the trucks of Carfuel, a subsidiary of the Carrefour group dedicated to the oil business, with a system based on SmartZone Navigation Duo. And ASP Virtual Computer (France) has signed an agreement to launch SmartZone Navigation for PDAs to business users in France.

Many telematics and tracking applications combine products from multiple suppliers, but few suppliers have so far come up with this kind of a comprehensive software package.