Mapping the Future

Until now, the GIS market has suffered from the lack of an easy-to-use yet powerful commercial database to support geospatial applications. All that is about to change thanks to the introduction of Oracle Database 10g Spatial, according to leading digital mapping solutions provider Tele Atlas.

Geographical information systems (GIS) have really come into their own in recent years, with funky new applications for GPS navigation being built into the latest cars, PDAs and even mobile phones. The less well known, but no less innovative, side of GIS is its application in enterprise software systems, enabling business managers to locate, track and direct resources in real time and in a visual environment.

Jack Reinelt knows both of these dynamic markets very well. He is European managing director and chief operating officer for Tele Atlas, a global leader in digital mapping solutions. Tele Atlas was a GIS pioneer when it was founded nearly 20 years ago, and the Ghent, Belgium-headquartered company now realises revenues of €120m through sales of its products to consumers, in-car electronics manufacturers and makers of business software.

Reinelt believes that the market for GIS functionality in enterprise applications has reached a critical turning point. "We are seeing the number of geospatial applications proliferate, driven by demand from the enterprise market," he says. "There are thousands of potential applications - for example in the Utilities sector, an organisation may use GIS to track the exact physical location of its engineers and vehicles; its assets such as pipelines or cables, and the premises of its customers. Engineers can be easily routed and rerouted according to their proximity to the issue at hand."

According to Reinelt, there is scope for incorporating digital mapping functionality into almost any application that handles data about the location of people or things. But until now, he says, the market has been held back by the lack of a powerful enterprise-class database with sufficiently advanced spatial functionality to support sophisticated applications.

"Building geospatial capabilities into enterprise applications has to date been a difficult, time-consuming and risky task," he says. "The introduction of Oracle 10g Database, with its powerful spatial functionality, is set to transform the market."

So impressed was Tele Atlas with the capabilities of Oracle Database 10g Spatial, that the company has made a strategic decision to migrate its solutions to the new Oracle technology from the Informix platform it had been using. This process will be completely transparent for Tele Atlas customers and will ultimately contribute to a better product quality and reliability.

"Oracle is the leader in the spatial database market," says Reinelt. "Oracle Database 10g Spatial not only delivers the ability to create high-quality GIS apps, but it also offers ease of use, unrivalled performance and scalability as well as the reliable production of high quality mapping data combined with high availability."

"The introduction of Oracle Database 10g will help accelerate the market for geospatial applications."
- Jack Reinelt, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, Tele Atlas Europe.

"Until now there has not been a commercially-available spatial database with the breadth and depth of Oracle 10g," he continues. "I believe that the introduction of 10g will help accelerate the market for geospatial applications."

Tele Atlas also identifies the large size of the Oracle installed base as a fertile market for GIS applications based on Oracle 10g. "Many of the customers looking for new geospatial solutions already have Oracle technology and are looking to adopt Oracle's newer technology," he says.

To complement the company's strategic investment in Oracle Database 10g as the technology platform underpinning its software, Tele Atlas has also opted to standardise on Oracle products to support all its internal processes, from the Oracle Database 10g to the Oracle Application Server 10g and the Oracle Collaboration Suite. "Using Oracle products internally puts us in a compatible technological environment both with Oracle and with our customers, which is always beneficial," says Reinelt.

Tele Atlas had not worked with Oracle before this project, and has been very pleased with the way the relationship has unfolded. "We have been working with Oracle on this project now for close to a year, and have experienced outstanding co-operation, interest and support throughout the development phase," he says.

Oracle and Tele Atlas are working in close partnership to deploy the Oracle technology in the Tele Atlas mapmaking process and both companies are now planning joint marketing activities and the establishment of a mutually supportive sales structure. A key objective is to develop a number of pilot projects with existing strategic accounts, as well as showcasing the solution to prospective customers and partners through a programme of joint seminars and at Tele Atlas's and Oracle's competency centres. Tele Atlas will also present its experience of Oracle Database 10g Spatial at September's Oracle OpenWorld events in London and Amsterdam.

Jack Reinelt advises other ISVs who may be considering migrating to Oracle to find out in advance how Oracle can help. "Migrating to a new platform is always a strategic decision, so it needs to be approached in a well planned way," he says. "My advice would be to talk to Oracle upfront to understand the level of support that they can commit to the project. We received a lot of assistance from Oracle in planning the project and the product launches and were pleasantly surprised at the breadth of the support that Oracle was prepared to commit."

About Tele Atlas
Tele Atlas is a worldwide leader in the development of state-of-the-art geographic databases. It has the largest portfolio of the most highly detailed and accurate digital maps of both Europe and North America, covering around 437 million inhabitants in most European countries and 313 million in North America.

Visit www.teleatlas.com for more information on Tele Atlas.

Further Information for ISVs: Vendors who may be interested in finding out more about using Tele Atlas's digital mapping functionality in their solutions should contact Laurent de Hauwere at laurent.dehauwere@teleatlas.com.

Related Information

Read more about Oracle Database 10g Spatial
Press release: Tele Atlas and Oracle Engage in a Strategic Alliance - 22 July 2004