GeoSentric Oyj (GyPSii) has
announced that its geo-mobility social networking platform GeoSolutions BV
Business Unit is to integrate with Chinese mobile handset company Ramar
International Co. Ltd. Following an
agreement between the two companies, GyPSii will be included as standard in Ramar?s
new package of location-based services.
Ramar?s customers will
thereby benefit from features previously unavailable on Chinese GPS-enabled
mobile devices, with the addition of GyPSii social media capabilities that
include mobile social networking, user-generated content, friend finding and
mapping (UGC) within a single user interface.
The new offering will initially be restricted to ?amsam? devices, on
which it will be available in both Traditional and Simplified Chinese. The handsets will be marketed by Ramar
through its own distribution network as well as through retail partners in most
parts of China.
The profit sharing scheme
agreed to by the two parties is based both on advertising revenue and a license
fee due to Ramar in return for pre-bundling the application on its
handsets. It includes the provision of GyPSii
revenue streams from both IPR licenses and mobile Geo-advertising, drawing on
the platform?s ability to drive personally and contextually relevant content to
the user, allowing for precision-targeted promotional campaigns.
GyPSii chief executive
officer Dan Harple presents the partnership as prime example of his company?s
broader concept of growth, commenting that, ?This relationship demonstrates our
commitment to an embedded device strategy, as the most effective way to drive
the uptake of social networking via the mobile phone. Our partnership with Ramar gives us another
significant inroad into the lucrative market for mobile location services in the
world?s largest mobile market.?
GyPSii currently runs on
both browser-based Internet connected devices and on a range of handsets
including Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and the iPhone.