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SpatialNews Press Release
Navigation Technologies Joins Location-Based Services Group
MAGIC Services Initiative to Develop and Promote
Open Industry-wide Specification
ROSEMONT, Ill., February 28, 2001 - Navigation Technologies Corporation
(NTC), the world’s leading provider of digital map information and enabling technology
used in a wide range of road-based navigation products, systems, and services,
announced today that it has become a sponsor member of the Mobile and Automotive
Geographic Information Core, or MAGIC, Services Initiative. The MAGIC Services?
Initiative is an industry consortium established to develop and promote an open industry
specification for delivering navigation, telematics and related location-based services
across multiple networks, platforms and devices via standard Internet transports and
service access protocols.
Navigation Technologies’ NAVTECH map information is used in every vehicle
equipped with global positioning satellite (GPS) route guidance technology in North
America and the majority of those in Europe, as well as being at the heart of almost every
off-board telematics solution in those markets. “As the leading provider of digital mapping
data, we’re proud to contribute our experience and expertise to the MAGIC Services
Initiative and the development of an industry standard for this space,” said M. Salahuddin
Khan, Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Strategy, Navigation Technologies.
The MAGIC Initiative will enable the high performance and low-cost delivery of
geographic data services to both wireless and wired networked computers, laptops,
handheld computers, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), mobile handsets, in-vehicle
positioning systems and other mobile devices. The delivery of this data will be
accomplished via standard protocols and application programming interfaces (APIs).
Participation in this effort by key companies in the location-based services value chain,
like Navigation Technologies, will make the development and market acceptance of these
standards more timely.
“Membership in MAGIC affirms our commitment to expanding the markets we are
pioneering with our products and services,” said Lawrence Dunn, Vice President of
Navigation Technologies’ Connected Map Service, and the company’s representative on
the MAGIC Services management board. “This is particularly important considering that
MAGIC’s objectives strongly relate to the product development and positioning of our
Connected Map Service (CMS).”
Connected Map Service, a server-based solution that provides dynamic route and
guidance information allowing service providers to offer high-value location-based
services with the most current map information available, will soon be launched by
Navigation Technologies. With CMS, service providers can avoid the complexities and
significant development, operational and maintenance costs associated with managing
such information.
Most of today’s navigation, telematics, and other location-sensitive services are
based on proprietary and incompatible protocols with each protocol functioning with a
certain amount of data types and systems.
The MAGIC Services Initiative seeks to establish a uniform industry specification
for these products, permitting interoperability between location data, devices and systems.
MAGIC is open to a wide range of industries and partners, including navigation
data content vendors, navigation and telematics system developers, telematics service
providers, wireless carriers and application developers. Visit the MAGIC Web site at
www.MAGICServicesForum.org for more information on the consortium and its
membership.
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