Sensis driving for wireless mapping future

Dec 22, 2004: Universal Publishers, one of Australia's biggest mapping and street directory businesses, is the latest company to be bought by Sensis, which plans to offer digital mapping in cars eventually, as well as many other advanced mapping services.

Through this acquisition, Sensis will gain ownership of Universal Publishers' urban and regional mapping data, and a wide range of print street directory, mapping and tour guides produced and marketed under Gregory's and UBD.

In Australia, these include 49 street directories, 101 maps for Universal Publishers, 37 maps for the RACV, 50 maps for oil companies, 6 atlases of Australia, 18 guides and 3 CD Rom products.

Bruce Akhurst, the Sensis Chief Executive Officer, said: "This is an important, strategic acquisition that places Sensis at the forefront of Australia's fast-growing, digital mapping industry. Universal Publishers' extensive mapping content, combined with our own Whereis digital mapping content, means Sensis now has the largest and most up-to-date database of navigable mapping content in Australia.

"We have nearly 100 percent coverage and, unlike our competitors, our content covers everything from urban streets, to points of interests, four-wheel drive tracks in the remote outback and smaller roads you'd never see on a normal map."

Chris Smith, the group manager of location and navigations for Sensis in Australia explained how this acquisition would help the company to develop new products.

"We used to be partners with Universal Publishers, but we used to operate on two separate databases. Now we can unite the databases and work from one central resource. This means that we have total ownership of the data.

"With this, we aim to incorporate the information into wireless technology, which should be very useful for personal navigation and for business to business purposes following the recent explosion of interest in GPRS technology. We can offer new products we could never offer before."

He added that the mapping information includes turn-by-turn details, which could be used for example in devices placed in cars, or even via handheld systems such as a Blackberry.

"The information can be inter-linked also with our other services, such as www.yellowpages.com.au, www.whitepages.com.au, www.citysearch.com.au and www.whereis.com.au. We aim to create new products that bring out of the best of all these different areas."

Mapping data is already a core part of Sensis' local content portfolio, which is available through the recently launched sensis.com.au search engine, the Sensis 1234 premium voice service. However, this service has attracted fierce criticism following the high charges for this service.

Customers hope that the new products offered by Sensis following this most recent acquisition will not cost as much too.

Related Article:

Telstra accused of losing control of its Sensis