Productivity and customer service are enhanced with audible turn-by-turn instructions and intelligent routing based on vehicle type and traffic conditions.
Mountain View, CA – November 7, 2006 – Xora, a leading provider of location-based mobile workforce management solutions, and Garmin International Inc. today announced an agreement to provide mobile workers with advanced navigation capabilities. Garmin’s industry leading navigation technology is now available in Xora’s award-winning GPS TimeTrack solutions, providing field staff the ability to navigate to a new job site with the click of a button on their handsets.
“Our goal is to help our customers achieve maximum efficiencies within their mobile workforces. When a driver is able to quickly navigate from job to job, productivity goes up and fleet costs go down.” said Xora CEO Sanjay Shirole. “Partnering with Garmin, the recognized industry leader for navigation, enables us to offer our customers the best solution in the industry.”
“We are pleased that Xora selected Garmin’s LBS Toolkit for their leading GPS TimeTrack solution,” said Charles Morse, Garmin’s director of mobile and PND marketing. “The Garmin LBS Toolkit puts mobile workers in control of the road by providing them with industry leading navigation capabilities including intelligent routing to avoid traffic tie ups, spoken street names, and automatic route recalculation, should the driver stray off course.”
A fundamental problem for mobile workers is figuring the best route to take in order to get to a job site. If the worker is unfamiliar with the area, all it takes is a few wrong turns to result in wasted time and added wear and tear on the vehicle. Xora and Garmin are solving this problem by offering best-in-class turn-by-turn navigation in Xora’s award-winning GPS TimeTrack solution.
Once a job is dispatched to a worker’s phone through the Xora system, they will receive turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions to that job with a single click on their handset. Alternatively, a worker can simply enter an address into the phone manually. The system then generates audible turn-by-turn driving instructions along with visual cues on the handset screen. If the user strays from the route, the application automatically calculates a new one. Garmin Mobile’s text-to-speech functionality allows the unit to audibly announce the name of upcoming streets – letting drivers keep their eyes on the road while navigating through busy traffic and tricky roadways.
A key aspect of the Xora and Garmin solution is the ability to provide intelligent routing based on the type of vehicle a mobile worker is operating. Appropriate routes can be calculated for different vehicle types, such as a taxi, bus, truck, car or emergency vehicle. The Garmin routing engine also takes into consideration traffic conditions when calculating the best route. Audible turn-by-turn navigation, when coupled with route optimization and route planning tools provides the best-in-class solution for companies to fully optimize their delivery schedules and manage logistics
Xora mobile workforce management applications enable businesses to track and manage field staff via GPS-enabled mobile phones. Mobile workers use the phones to record time sheet and job status information, including when they begin and end shifts and jobs. Office staff can access this information in real-time through web-based maps and reports. Companies use this information to ensure that workers are paid accurately and customers are billed appropriately. This added visibility leads to increased productivity, lower costs and enables the delivery of superior customer service.
About Xora
Xora is a leading provider of location-based mobile workforce management solutions that allow customers to realize improved productivity, reduce the cost of field operations and provide better customer service. Founded in 1999, Xora has raised more than $11 million in venture capital and is privately funded; the lead investor is Dawntreader Ventures. Xora partners include Sprint, Telstra, Motorola, RIM, Oracle and Sun.
About Garmin
Garmin International Inc. is a member of the Garmin Ltd. group of companies, which designs and manufactures navigation, communication and information devices -- most of which are enabled by GPS technology. Garmin is a leader in the general aviation and consumer GPS markets and its products serve aviation, marine, outdoor recreation, automotive, wireless and OEM applications. Garmin Ltd. is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, and its principal subsidiaries are
located in the United States, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit Garmin's virtual pressroom at www.garmin.com/pressroom or contact the Media Relations department at 913-397-8200.Garmin is a registered trademark of Garmin Ltd. or its subsidiaries.
Media Contact:
Kevin Wolf
Tool Guy PR for Xora
(650) 327-1641
kevin@toolguypr.com
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