Opt(e)way opens the door to location based services

The start-up from Sophia Antipolis presents on Monday November 27th at the Carlton in Cannes, a platform intended to mobile telephony operators and Internet services providers.

Opt(e)way, a company from Sophia Antipolis, is launching the great offensive. On Monday November 27th, the company organizes a presentation day of its first 'product' at the Carlton in Cannes : opt(e)go, a software for the creation of location based services. Opt(e)way is a company that doesn't waste any time. Only four months after having raised 17 million euros from 3i group plc, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Goldman Sachs and Part'Com, the firm announced, late October, with opt(e)go, the launching of the premium generation tools for mobile commerce and 'location based' services.GSM but also GPRS and UMTS networksWhat will opt(e)go will allow ? It simply allows the access to so-called location based services, not only from a PC, but also from a mobile phone, a PDA (personal assistant) or even from a mobile navigation system. It deals with access and itinerary plans, traffic, yellow pages, etc. This can be under a textual, a vocal or a graphic form. Thus we can imagine that, from the mobile phone, someone could find the cheapest available parking slot in town. Or, if equipped with GPS, it could be possible to get the route that we have to follow to find the hotel where we have booked a room on a map. Such services that we don't know yet and that still have to be imagined will, from now on, be offered.What's the secret weapon of Opt(e)way ? A patented vector based file format named TPFtm (Topological Portable Format) optimises the size of cartographic files with no compression. TPF proved to be fifty times less heavy than existing formats, which allows to load cards more quickly. So its conciseness and the multi-layered structure of the format are optimised for the creation and the transmission of location based services with a strong added value on current mobile networks (GSM) or by new generation services (GPRS, UMTS).the era of geo-dependant servicesOpt(e)go won't directly touch individuals. Actually the platform is intended to mobile telephony operators and Internet service providers. Compaq Telecom intends to include it in its location based solutions offer. As well, Egery, the Vivendi and PSA's joint-venture for the creation of Internet services for car drivers, started a pilot project with Opt(e)way. Such possible applications, and such possible partnerships will be discussed during the conference that will begin at 9.00 AM and will go on until 6.00 PM.The programme, that you can find on /www.opteway.com">www.opteway.com, includes individual presentations, roundtables with analysts and managers from the mobile industry. Officials from Egery, Goldman Sachs, Compaq Telecom, Netsize, Cellpoint, Atos will mention all new fields of possibilities in the mobile telephony and car navigation systems. The era of geo-dependant services is announced !