Telcontar Launches Commercial Hosted Web Services for Location-Enhanced Internet and Mobile Applications

May 10, 2006; 04:20 AM

San Jose, California – Telcontar, the leading supplier of software and services for the Location-Based Services (LBS) industry, today announced the availability of Telcontar Hosted Web Services, a non-branded online service that enables fast development and deployment of customized, state-of-the-art location-enhanced Internet and mobile applications.

Telcontar's Hosted Web Services is the industry's most advanced and easy-to-use solution for creating rich, high-performance AJAX fluid maps for location-enabled applications. It is an online geospatial service powered by Telcontar's flagship geospatial software platform, the Drill Down Server® (DDS) that gives developers the ability to develop and deploy location-based applications faster and with more flexibility. Telcontar's service enables developers without extensive geospatial knowledge to quickly produce location-enhanced applications integrating draggable maps, proximity search, routes and driving directions. Developers can customize the mapping user experience to create market differentiation specific to their application or local requirements.

The service is the commercial version of Telcontar's free Developer Zone, which serves over three hundred application developers and has provided the geospatial platform for numerous award-winning applications during its 10 months of operation. Telcontar's DDS is the geospatial software platform utilized by major Internet map providers such as Ask.com, Google and Yahoo, as well as mobile LBS developers like Appello, Networks in Motion, TeleNav and many others that are deployed at carriers such as Sprint and Verizon.

"Location-based applications are quickly becoming competitive differentiators for service providers, vertical portals, and corporate brands," said J. Kim Fennell, president and CEO of Telcontar. "Telcontar Hosted Web Services broadens our strength of providing customers with
a rapid-deployment solution for them to create and leverage their own unique location application."

Flexible, Scalable and Easy-to-Use Location Application Tools
Hosted Web Services is designed for developers of location-enhanced services wishing to leverage the advantages of a web service architecture including faster development times, cost efficient deployment, easy component reuse and friendly protocols and data formats. Telcontar's service is particularly well-suited for web-based applications requiring a fluid or "draggable" map user experience, providing industry-standard XML web services, best-of-breed map and POI data from leading vendors and flexible pricing options.

With Hosted Web Services, Telcontar provides servers, routers, load balancers, software, and data. Telcontar takes care of capacity planning, load balancing, maintaining servers, updating map and POI data sets and so on. The service appears to the developer as a simple URL to which XML can be posted. Hosted Web Services returns XML containing URLs for map images and OpenLS-based elements representing addresses, routes, points of interest and a variety of other structures common to location applications. Virtually any modern programming language can be employed.

Telcontar also provides a wealth of full-featured sample applications, tools to test XML requests and the response they generate, and tools to experiment and learn. Developers can quickly understand enough of the XML to use the schemas effectively and adapt the samples for their own purpose. For Java developers, a comprehensive Java API alleviates the need for generating and parsing XML.

Telcontar has implemented a smooth transition process for developers moving their application from the non-commercial Developer Zone to live, commercial use on Hosted Web Services. Telcontar assists in profiling the application and provides the production URL to access Hosted Web Services. Developers simply change the application to use that URL instead of the Dev Zone URL.

Hosted Web Services runs in a state-of-the-art, professionally-managed hosting environment and builds on the well-known scalability of the Drill Down Server. Because each server in the hosted cluster shares no resources with any other server, the architecture is scalable without limit.

About Telcontar
Telcontar provides the enabling geospatial software platform that powers today's leading location-based applications. The company specializes in providing solutions ideal for Internet, mobile, and telematics applications where scalability, speed, and reliability are vital. Its Drill Down Server® geospatial software platform and Rich Map Engine powers today's most successful and widely deployed LBS applications. Telcontar customers and technology partners include AND, Appello, Ask.com, ATX, Google, Hutchison Mobile, Local Matters, Motorola, NAVTEQ, Networks In Motion, Pharos, Rand McNally, Tele Atlas, Yahoo!, and Zillow.com. Telcontar is privately held and headquartered in San Jose, California with European offices in the UK and France. Additional information about Telcontar, its products and services, and past press releases can be found at the Company's web site: http://www.telcontar.com.

Telcontar and Drill Down Server are trademarks or registered trademarks of Telcontar in the United States and/or other countries. All other product or company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.