Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Getting A Fix On Enterprise- Nextel's menu of location-based services is hitting home with a wider range of business customers.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 01:41:53 -0400

Getting A Fix On Enterprise- Nextel's menu of location-based services is
hitting home with a wider range of business customers.

BY KAREN BROWN
MAY 15, 2004
WIRELESS WEEK

Armed with GPS technology, a new low-cost offering and a stable of
applications partners, Nextel Communications is homing in on a growing
business in enterprise locator services. It also is locating a wider
range of customers, moving beyond the transportation industry that has
used GPS systems for years. Fleet management, field technician and sales
force segments are beginning to find value in the services and integrate
them into their efforts.

Leading Nextel's GPS push into these new segments is Mobile Locator, the
low-cost service the company launched in November. The Internet-based
service allows users to log in, locate one or many phones on an account
and represent their positions on a map.

NEW TARGETS The fleet management and transportation industries have long
used GPS, but until now, those systems have mostly relied on expensive
"black box" units permanently mounted in vehicles. In contrast, Mobile
Locator service offers enterprise customers a lower cost alternative
that is based in the handset.

"We have a pretty great target, I think, for this product," says Bob
Ewald, senior director of wireless data services at Nextel. "We targeted
the Mobile Locator at the low end as far as a price point and also in
terms of features. It's a very basic product, and it is intended to
introduce customers to the value that location-enhanced services can
bring to their businesses."
For example, an administrator at a home office could log into Nextel.com
and find out where field technicians are based on their cell phone
location. The administrator can then direct calls to the closest
technician using Nextel's popular DirectConnect push-to-talk (PTT)
service.

"So what I don't have to do anymore is DirectConnect every single one of
my technicians in an area and say, 'Where are you?'" Ewald says. "What
it really does is it optimizes your use of the DirectConnect feature."
According to Ewald, Mobile Locator has either hit or exceeded its
monthly sales projections, although he would not give exact figures. "We
have seen it mostly in the transportation and fleet management
verticals, and our research indicates that we're also getting a number
of individuals who are selecting it," Ewald says.

Separately, Nextel offers a turn-by-turn directions feature preloaded on
its i730 handset. The Telenav application, provided by partner
Televigation, comes in three service tiers: a pay-as-you-go offering of
$2.99 monthly plus 35 cents per trip, a $9.99 monthly package offering
10 round-trips and a $19.99 package offering up to 300 trips monthly.

"When you look at that compared to a $2,500 upgrade in your vehicle –
and by the way this works if you are in your vehicle or not in your
vehicle – the price point is actually pretty reasonable," Ewald says.

The navigation packages rolled out in March. Although it is still early,
Ewald says the company is "very pleased with how Telenav has been picked
up by our customers. And as with many new types of services, the numbers
start small, but they are very encouraging when you look at them
relative to other product introductions."

BEYOND MOBILE LOCATOR Nextel also offers expanded GPS products through
third-party developers including @Road Pathway, Xora and ActSoft. With
that wider range of applications, Nextel is finding a wider range of
vertical markets.
"One of the most encouraging things we've seen is that it's no longer
just the fleet management and transportation segments which want to
integrate location into their products. We've seen significant interest
from across the board for our mobile applications developers wanting to
integrate location into their solutions," Ewald says.

For ActSoft, which offers the Comet Tracker workforce management
application, jumping aboard Nextel's service has expanded business
beyond its original focus on same-day delivery company tracking
software. ActSoft was one of the first three companies to launch a
product on Nextel's data network in 2000.

When Nextel added GPS handsets in late 2002, "we certainly jumped all
over it," says Tom Mitchell, ActSoft chief technology officer. "When GPS
came around in a low-cost form factor like a handset, that was a home
run."

The result was Comet Tracker, a management service developed with Nextel
and launched in January 2003. It goes beyond an employee locator service
and adds the ability to log where employees go, what jobs they complete,
what parts they use and when they leave a job site, Mitchell says.

"It kind of went through the growing pains of the first six months of
fooling around with it, but since then it has absolutely exploded," he
says. "We probably averaged maybe doing 250 units a month for the first
six months and since then we've averaged about 2,100 units a month."

With its expanded capability, Comet Tracker is finding its way beyond
just transportation services. Mitchell notes that with an attached
bar-code scanner, health department inspectors are using the Comet
Tracker software to record inspections and log reports.

"Our market has gone from a very tight vertical of same-day delivery
guys to pretty much anybody who owns a Nextel phone is a very good
prospect for our service," Mitchell says.

It's also cheaper in terms of the device and the service charge.
Mitchell notes comparable tracking services could range from $50 to $70
a month, compared to about $30 for Comet Tracker. As for the device,
"you're looking at a $100 device that's now not only a cell phone but my
radio, my GPS tracking device and data collection device," Mitchell
notes.

Elsewhere, other carriers have added location capabilities to their
networks, but so far they have not been as willing as Nextel to open
their systems to outside developers.

"Probably within the next year you are going to see more wireless
carriers do it, but at this point we are really enjoying an exclusive
relationship with Nextel," Mitchell says.

Meanwhile, Nextel continues to develop its own GPS portfolio. But
contrary to other carriers, Nextel is looking beyond points-of-interest
location services, where customers can find nearby amenities.

"The points-of-interest capability will be part of any product that we
offer, but it won't be the focus. Where we will actually leverage more
is the ability to accurately locate others as part of our solution,"
Ewald says. "I think that's because the technology that we offer really
allows us to do that efficiently."

Until now, location services have been something of an industry
disappointment, but there are signs the sector is making a modest
comeback, according to analyst firm ABI Research. It predicts total
revenue from location services could rise beyond $3.6 billion worldwide
by the end of the decade, with the largest growth segment in enterprise
services aimed at tracking employees and assets in the field.

Indeed, Nextel is hoping that proves to be the case. If successful, GPS
services
could add a valuable revenue waypoint on its enterprise services road
map

http://www.wirelessweek.com/article/CA417713?spacedesc=Departments&stt=000

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