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Location based services and handheld positioning devices have struggled – and continue to struggle – to find a mass market, despite the recent appearance of innovative GPS (global positioning system)-enabled products such as the Hewlett-Packard iPAQ hw6515 Mobile Messenger (see top image). Will those struggles continue, or will location based services, as some analysts are predicting, break out in 2006?

The future will in large part be determined by how willing wireless mobile carriers are to invest in marketing services and devices. But a nascent grassroots wireless positioning initiative led by a maverick group in New York may also help drive the market – more about that in a moment.

As we saw in the first three parts (see below) of this four-part series on handheld GPS and location based services (LBS), the global market has grown unevenly. LBS got off the ground earlier and grew faster in Japan and South Korea than in North America or Europe, for example – though still not as fast as Korean and Japanese carriers had hoped. In North America, only one major national carrier, Nextel, now part of Sprint, has invested heavily and consistently in marketing LBS.

Two of the other majors, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless, are holding back at least for the moment. Neither is saying when it might jump in. “It’s clearly something we're working on but there’s nothing really to say at this point,” a Verizon spokesperson told us. “Stay tuned.” A T-Mobile spokesperson was even more noncommittal.

Cingular
Cingular, however, did make a significant move recently when it launched the GPS-enabled 6500 series iPAQ devices on its network, along with a co-marketing effort with HP to promote location based applications. “We think this is a really a good move,” Cingular spokesperson John Kampfe says of the 6500 launch. “It’s not so much a complete change of direction, though. It’s more that our strategy is evolving.”

Cingular had already, with little fanfare, begun to work with independent LBS solutions providers to market vertical applications to its corporate customers. It has relationships with or has certified products on its network from “well over 100” solutions providers, though not all are exclusively LBS.

LBS
The roster includes long-time LBS players such as Pharos Science & Applications (navigation and traffic reporting), MapFusion (mapping and routing for sales and transportation logistics management), WebTech Wireless (fleet tracking) and @Road Inc. (fleet and employee tracking). Cingular also works with more specialized providers such as Cube Route Inc. (hosted location-based logistics services) and Cheetah Software Systems (real-time routing, delivery and dispatch for “less-than-truckload” companies).

Cingular works with LBS providers in a number of ways. Some simply have their products certified for use on the Cingular network. Others enter into contractual co-marketing agreements under which Cingular sales people promote the product or service to corporate customers – and vice versa. In a typical engagement, either Cingular or the solution provider will initiate the customer relationship and then call in the other partner to help develop a complete solution.

“We tend to take a business process approach to engaging the marketplace,” explains Debbie Terwilliger, senior offer manager in the business data services group at Cingular. “Instead of focusing only on a device with certain features, we’ll identify the customer’s pain points and then try to position a solution to relieve them.”

Cingular has thousands of customers using LBS, says Terwilliger. “There’s quite a large demand for these services, and it has definitely increased over the past 12 months.”

Most LBS customers, though, are enterprises that go through long, involved selection processes. The iPaq 6500 initiative, which will involve selling the devices in retail outlets where Cingular service is sold, opens the market to new segments.

“Smaller companies like construction firms and plumbers now don’t have to go through that whole consultative process,” Kampfe explains. “They can actually go into a store and buy number of devices, and then go to our Web portal where they can download applications onto the 6500 and be up and ready to go. It’s more of an out-of-the-box type of solution now.”

Providers
The co-marketing agreement with HP covers more than just LBS. HP and Cingular worked with 14 application providers to create the HP Mobility Solutions Evaluation Center, which includes both tutorials and a catalog of downloadable trial versions of mobile applications, including mail and messaging, security and navigation. There are three LBS solutions: the HP iPAQ Navigation System, Microsoft Pocket Streets 2006 and Geotab’s GPS 2Go, a fleet tracking system.

Co-developed by Navteq, the HP iPAQ Navigation System provides voice-guided, turn-by-turn instructions to any address in the U.S., plus a large and detailed database of “points of interest,” including hotels, restaurants, banks, etc. HP iPAQ hw6500 series owners in the United States and Canada are eligible for a free download of Microsoft Pocket Streets 2006, which also lets you find addresses and points of interest but doesn’t provide turn-by-turn directions.

Geotab's GPS 2GO software and patented GPS recording system turns the iPaq 6500 into a real time location tracking system, letting dispatchers and managers view the location of personnel and vehicles from their desktops, send messages, route using the MapPoint Web Service and generate activity reports.

Cingular will introduce other devices with GPS built in, Kampfe says. And it will eventually bring LBS to its consumer customers. “I can’t put a time frame on it but certainly we will cover the consumer market.” In fact, the iPaq 6500 is really a first foray into the consumer market, Kampfe says. Even though it’s a fairly high-end product, it is available at retail and anybody can buy it, including consumers.

Grassroots Triangulation
While operators like Cingular will likely be the major driving force behind the LBS market, an intriguing initiative by French-born, New York-based entrepreneur Cyril Houri may generate some wider interest in LBS. Houri’s company, Mexens, has developed Navizon, which the company describes as “the first peer-to-peer wireless positioning system that successfully blends GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular signals together into one accurate and powerful mobile geo-location system.”

The idea, developed by Houri and a group of like-minded “GPS geeks,” was to improve availability and accuracy of positioning in centers where GPS alone often doesn’t work well because of poor line of sight to satellites. Navizon is a software-only wireless positioning system that triangulates signals broadcast from Wi-Fi access points and cellular towers. It requires the efforts of GPS-equipped participants to initially map the locations of the APs and towers. But users of Pocket PC phones with built-in Wi-Fi can get accurate positioning without GPS.

The software is available for free download from the Navizon Web site. A license for business or government use costs $20. The Navizon software includes mapping as well as “points of interest” and closed user group buddy search features.

When a technology starts generating grassroots, collaborative initiatives like Navizon, it’s a pretty good sign that it’s about to break through. Is this true for GPS and location based services? Stay tuned.