TomTom Africa signs with deCarta

The agreement, effective immediately and spanning all of Africa, will see TomTom Africa providing an integrated digital mapping offering running on the LBS platform, which currently features over 30 million users across the world.

The LBS platform allows for development on J2ME, Android, iOS and Desktop/Mobile JavaScript. The company recently launched L2 Geospatial Search Engine, a high performance, scalable local search engine with single line input and a simpler, more intuitive user interface. It sources and indexes premium map and POI (points of interest) content but also enables customers to index and control their own content using the L2 Index tools.

It also recently introduced its Xplorer V9 navigation platform, combining its cloud-based navigation service with customisable client-side libraries. This combination gives application developers the ability to add vector mapping and turn-by-turn navigation quickly to any mobile application, from local search to fleet management, providing users with fast and accurate driving directions to a destination or search result. It is available as a white label application or as client-side libraries depending on the degree of customisation required.

"We are delighted to extend our relationship with TomTom Africa," said J Kim Fennell, CEO of deCarta. "It has proven the value of bringing fully integrated solutions to its customers, combining the very best in content, platform and applications know-how."

The agreement will make it possible for companies operating in Africa to have free access, during the development phase, to a wide range of LBS application programming interfaces and services. TomTom Africa will then provide hosting services for their production applications.

Etienne Louw, director sales & marketing of TomTom Africa, commented, "The company's portfolio, including digital maps and accurate real-time and historical traffic products, effectively sees us entering a new era in the provision of international value offering to the African marketplace and the partnership enhances our digital mapping services to our customers."