Businesses eye mobile location-based services

The US location-based services (LBS) business market will surge from 582,000 to 1.1 million subscribed devices by the end of 2010, analysts have predicted.

According to a newly published report from In-Stat, location-enabled enterprise applications constitute a small but important segment of the market for mobile IT applications.

Applications for this technology include fleet management/dispatch, workforce and sales force management, as well as a variety of public sector location applications.

"The forecast for enterprise location-enabled applications using handsets depends on how carriers and applications vendors sort out how they will market these applications and how to structure the billing relationship," said Allyn Hall, a director with In-Stat.

"In addition, the availability of handsets that are compatible with location-based services is a key factor that depends on marketing and expenditure decisions by carriers."

The In-Stat study, Location-Enabled Services in the Enterprise, predicts that the largest market will centre on legacy black box applications, which use vehicle-mounted devices.

The use of mobile handsets equipped with Assisted-Global Position System (A-GPS) chipsets is identified by the report as a key emerging market.