Overview
The VALUE Integrated Platform (VIP) was created for the provision of consumer oriented LBS in China. It is a modular system composed of three main modules:
- the digital map (DM),
- the front-end (FE) and
- the back-end (BE).
These modules may be combined together and marketed as five different solutions.
The VIP consists of all three modules integrated as for the VALUE field trial prototype. This solution provides the full added value of a flexible, reliable, high quality LBS platform. The marketing analysis and exploitation strategy that was elaborated by the VALUE consortium therefore deliberately focus on the VIP as a turnkey solution, rather than on other combinations of its component modules.
The target market for commercialisation of the VIP was the whole of China, while the position of the European technology providers as potential suppliers to that market is considered from a global viewpoint, i.e. including competitors from anywhere in the world. Key competitive advantages for the VIP are: the consortium’s knowledge and experience of European LBS, experience also in China, use of legal, standardised map data bases, coverage of a large variety of LBS services, use of standard technologies in web development, favourable prices for licences and software, flexible, modular, good quality solutions, use of Unicode. The field trials have demonstrated that the VALUE project has successfully localised European technology to meet the needs of the Chinese market.
The VALUE Integrated Platform have thus been offered as a modular solution for setting up, maintaining and operating an open service network, to which various content and service providers could link up, for the provision of reliable consumer oriented LBS based on standardised map data.
Funding
Results
The VALUE Integrated Platform (hereinafter called VIP) consists of a service platform based on the J2EE standard. The physical separation of the platform from the backend servers and the front-end clients enables the service provider to react flexibly to different market conditions as content and back-end servers can be replaced without affecting the business logic of the service platform. The communication between the platform and any connected B2B client is based on SOAP/XML Web Services, which enable the customer to connect easily to the platform in order to use single-domain content, such as traffic information or weather, or multiple domain services, such as those implemented for the VALUE project.
In addition VALUE has applied existing mapping standards to the Chinese context through the co-operation of a leading European and Chinese map provider, enabling the provision of a standard digital map for the project trial area in Beijing.
The project has also developed a front-end for the platform using Chinese as the default language and taking account of local end user interaction requirements. The project has therefore succeeded in localising leading European technology to the Chinese context. In the framework of the VALUE project, the European technology providers have investigated the possibility to build on the work completed during the project through the execution of a joint exploitation strategy that specifically aims at the commercialisation of the VIP within China.