Polaris Wireless Provides Highly Effective Location Based Services
We caught up with Mr. Srinivas Varadarajan, the Vice President, Sales & Business Development for Asia. What followed was a highly technical conversation about the scope of his company, from being able to implement their location based services both to benefit end-users and even in counter-terrorism operations.
1. How and when did you start off? A bit about your team, and how would you describe Polaris wireless in brief?
SV: Polaris Wireless has over 10 years of experience in providing wireless location services. It has achieved 66% average annual contract bookings growth rate from 2007-2010 and is well positioned to capture additional growth in 2012 and beyond. We are headquartered in Santa Clara, California and we serve customers globally from offices in India, Japan, U.A.E., and Chile.
2. Please provide a short description of your products and services.
SV: - Polaris Wireless Location Surveillance Products are increasingly in demand in Asia, Africa and elsewhere, as governments seek to protect their citizens through the use of advanced technology. India is well-positioned to benefit from Polaris Wireless global experience.
Polaris Wireless Location Signatures (WLS) - This is a network-based software product that is accurate and reliable product offering a cost-effective solution for wireless carriers seeking to provide commercial location-based services. For example- Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) can be used to locate callers in distress.
The Altus application- It is the industry's only software-based surveillance solution that enables accurate mass location, allowing field agents to simultaneously track suspects on a Smartphone or tablet, and make life-or-death decisions in real time by receiving up-to-date intelligence from headquarters, such as past and current locations of suspects etc
3. What is your roadmap for your services in India? Who are your partners in India?
SV: Polaris Wireless has extended its reach by partnering with key players in the India telecommunications eco-system. The company has announced a partnership with TechMahindra subsidiary CanvasM to serve multiple wireless operators pan India.
The company also expanded its India ‘Centre of Excellence' development and operations organization, which was established in 2005 in Bangalore. It is one of two global development centers for our company.
4. Which sectors are your key targets in India?
SV: We consider the Indian market to be very attractive for Location Based Services(LBS) growth. Indian wireless subscribers will be able to benefit from applications that high-accuracy location enables, such as navigation and location-based advertising. In addition, we hope to work with Indian government agencies to deploy our solutions to enable mission-critical applications such as emergency calling and anti-crime surveillance.
5. Can you elaborate on the revenue model from Location Based Service besides providing safety & security?
SV: Market Research firm ABI Research predicts that global Location Based Services revenues will surpass $14 billion by 2014. Rising levels of urbanization and wealth are a prime driver for LBS penetration in developing markets such as Asia-Pacific. India is considered to be one of the fastest-growing markets in the region.
6. How will your solutions potentially help Indian LEAs and intelligence agencies?
SV: Polaris Wireless high-accuracy location enables government agencies to take a major leap forward in their efforts to locate and track known suspected criminals and terrorists. Our Altus application suite offers capabilities such as tracking, geo-fencing, mass analytics etc. to meet the mission-critical needs of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
7. What are the challenges do you think you will have to face in India as compared to your previous projects?
SV: In the next 6-12 months, if the top operators implement LBS then they will have a lot of enterprises and services that will be accessed by hundreds of millions of end-users. The truth is that technologies are there, well-matured enough to be deployed in very complex networks like the ones in India. And we have important partnerships in India like the Tech Mahindra that can help us deploy the product fast, as they have large operations in the market, know the networks very well and so they would easily deploy our products.
8. Let me know of anything else that you'd like us to mention.
We have been very pleased by both our experience in establishing our Bangalore Centre of Excellence, which facilitates our worldwide operations efforts, and in launching our strategic partnership with Tech Mahindra/CanvasM. We are confident that we have the right resources and relationships to respond to take part in the impressive growth of LBS in India.
A truly one-of-a-kind venture indeed. For more info on their products, visit their site here.
