GyPSii platform wins NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{Works is smart phones} GyPSii platform wins NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge

11 Mar 2008 at 19:48 GMT Timo Poropudas

GyPSii the world's leading geo-location and social networking service provider for mobile phones and Internet devices, was a winner in the NAVTEQ LBS Challenge, a contest in which over 300 companies competed.

The award coincided with GyPSii's live launch at the event, following a three month public beta trial with users worldwide. The honour further positions GyPSii as a significant player in the emerging mobile social networking and LBS market.

The worldwide contest, which has established a reputation as the premier event in the location-based services (LBS) industry, challenges application developers to build innovative location-based services which work with mobile phones and/or wireless handheld devices using dynamic positioning technology and NAVTEQ maps.

Over 316 companies registered for this year's Challenge globally, of which twelve advanced to the final judging in the European division. The finalists represented a broad spectrum of wireless applications and were selected based on commercial feasibility, functionality, ease of use and design. The final judging panel, which included executives from Autodesk, Deutsche Telekom, GPS and Co, Innovacom, Nokia, O2, Telecom Italia, Truffle Ventures, Vodafone, and WebMobility, based their decisions on the same key criteria.

Nokia has globally sponsored the Challenge for the third consecutive year and together with Autodesk in 2008.

"This has been a very exciting time for GyPSii," said Dan Harple, CEO of GyPSii. "In September 2007 we signaled our intent to become the leading global platform for the convergence of search, location and personal content as a new form of geo-social networking. Winning a NAVTEQ LBS Challenge award is satisfying because of the intense competition, coupled with the expertise of the panel of industry-leading judges. It means a lot to our whole team."

In February, GyPSii made a series of major announcements, significantly increasing its global presence.

In China, GyPSii announced partnerships with China Unicom, one of the two mobile operators in China with more than 150 million subscribers and Shanghai Rannuo to launch its GyPSii service for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Additional to this was the news of GyPSii's partnership with Chinese device manufacturer Dopod to provide a range of location-based information and services to members of its Dopod Club community.

The GyPSii application is already fully compatible with Windows Mobile phones, the Blackberry range from RIM and Nokia's flagship consumer smartphones. GyPSii recently announced web support for Apple's iPhone. It is available in ten languages including Korean, Russian and two forms of Chinese.