News
Issue #2002 - 11 (March 2002)
(Updated Mar. 20, 2002)

TECHNOLOGY

Cquay First to Demo OpenLS Services

Cquay said it has achieved a milestone in the advancement of wireless location services by demonstrating its Common Ground location services platform using an Open Location Services (OpenLS) compliant interface (XLS v1.0), which was developed by the Open Location Services initiative.

Cquay is only one of many ‘test-bed’ participants for the OpenLS specification. The mandate of OpenLS, an Open GIS Consortium initiative (OGS), is to develop standards needed by industry to support implementation of location services for mobile or wireless Internet-enabled devices

According to the president of OGS, David Schell, OpenLS is expected to facilitate the growth of location services markets in the wireless Web in the same way "HTTP protocols enabled the growth of the World Wide Web."

"Cquay recognizes the need for standards in the wireless location services market and has been a strong supporter of the OpenLS Initiative since day one," said Calvin McElroy, CEO Cquay. "The fact that we configured an XLS-compliant service within hours of receiving the OpenLS specification speaks volumes to the openness and expandability of our architecture and platform."

Other OpenLS- testbed participants include ESRI, IBM, MapInfo, SignalSoft, Sun Microsystems, Vodafone, and Webraska.

For more information: http://www.openls.org http://www.cquay.com

Mobileinfo Comments & Advisory: We do need more standards in wireless location-based software infrastructure and services. If we want to locate a restaurant or hotel on a map, we must not worry only about just technical standards like HTTP, XML, CDMA and the like but also how to map a city, how the users would make queries and much more!. To that end, we welcome Cquay's efforts.

Note: This news release may contain forward-looking statements. Readers should take appropriate caution in developing plans utilizing these products, services and technology architectures.  All trademarks used in this summary are the property of their respective owners.