Trimble , a vendor of Global Positioning System (GPS)
applications for mobile handsets, is picking up the pace with GPS-enabled devices with its purchase of privately-held Spacient Technologies for an undisclosed amount of cash.
Spacient makes enterprise field service management and mobile mapping
software for municipalities and utilities. The buy gives Trimble a platform for
expanding in those markets with mobile-based applications.
Trimble’s been on a buying spree lately, while establishing new relationships with handset manufacturers. And with good reason.
The market for handheld devices of all sorts is burgeoning. A report published by Gartner this week indicated that worldwide sales of handheld computers increased by almost 32 percent in the third quarter of 2006, compared with the third quarter of last year.
Roughly half of those devices were purchased by enterprises.
Not only that, GPS-enabled devices are coming on fast in the handheld market. Finnish cell phone maker Nokia, for one, is enabling 15 million units in 2006 with GPS abilities, close to 50 percent more in 2005. Last month, Trimble inked a
cross-licensing agreement with Nokia .
Spacient’s crown jewel is Fieldport, an Internet-based Geographic
Information System (GIS) centric, wireless software applications suite
focused on utilities field service management.
The company intends to combine technology from Spacient with its own GPS
applications to allow information from enterprise asset management, call
center management and GIS mapping systems to travel to handheld devices in
the field.
Doug Merrill, general manager of Trimble’s Mapping and GIS Division, said
that the acquisition will allow Trimble to expand into what he called “a
strategic area of focus for Trimble.”
“Spacient Technologies provides us with an enterprise software platform to
increase field productivity and customer satisfaction for our utility
customers,” added Merrill in a statement.
Fieldport is available both as a hosted subscription service or as an
on-premise application.
The application can run on a wide variety of mobile devices, including the
Windows Mobile, Palm, and PocketPC-based mobile devices, rugged and
non-rugged notebook and tablet computers, Blackberry devices, pagers and
digital phones.
Earlier this month, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company also acquired XYZ
Solutions, a vendor of real-time, interactive 3D intelligence software used
to manage the spatial aspects of construction projects.
