Blackbay and ALK Technologies Announce Strategic Partnership

Jan. 21, 2009 - PRLog -- Blackbay and ALK Technologies have entered into an EMEA strategic partnership that integrates Blackbay’s mobile worker solutions with ALK’s CoPilot Live GPS navigation software to combine real-time job management with full-featured turn-by-turn route guidance.  The integrated mobility solution will allow customers to deliver enhanced service levels and make savings on time, fuel costs and vehicle wear and tear.

As the current recession deepens, businesses across all sectors, are looking for technologies that will help them weather the financial storm.  More and more organisations now understand the business benefits that deployment of a mobility solution can deliver.  However, as pressure increases to remain profitable and retain competitive advantage they are looking for more complex mobile data solutions that further increase ROI by optimising workflow management, location and navigation services.

“In order to meet the continued demand for these complex enterprise mobility solutions it is crucial that our real-time worker solutions, Delivery Connect and Service Connect, easily and seamlessly integrate with other market leading solutions,” explained Larry Klimczyk, Blackbay’s MD.  “The partnership with ALK allows us to do just that and enhances our offering to our customers.  Together ALK and Blackbay are leveraging the recent advances made by mobile computer hardware manufacturers to integrate GPS functionality, increase processing power and memory capacity, enabling us to deploy multiple applications on a single mobile device.”

“We were keen to fomalise our relationship with Blackbay who we recognise as one of the leading providers of mobile worker software solutions in the marketplace.  CoPilot Live’s comprehensive software developer kit proved pivotal in delivering navigation functionality to Blackbay’s mobile worker software,” said Dan Popkin, Vice President, CoPilot Sales.  “Together we are bringing to market a powerful mobility solution that now combines satellite navigation with real-time job management.”

Blackbay and ALK have already enjoyed joint success with the UK’s Royal Mail, who selected Blackbay’s Delivery Connect integrated with ALK’s CoPilot Live as part of a real-time mobility solution designed to improve customer service for Royal Mail’s tracked products.  The joint solution is deployed on GPS-enabled Intermec CN3 Windows Mobile based handheld computers.

Blackbay’s software sends the mobile workers their appointments for the day, directly to a Windows Mobile enabled handheld mobile computer. The mobile worker then simply presses the ‘Navigate’ button from the job screen within Blackbay’s application to launch CoPilot Live.  The mobile worker is then automatically guided directly to the job destination through a combination of clear, turn by turn vocal instruction and visual direction displayed on the mobile device’s screen.  On arrival at the job, CoPilot exits and is replaced on-screen with Blackbay’s mobile worker application.  

“This seamless integration is very user friendly, saving the user valuable time in the field.  The enterprise benefits through better time management, route optimisation, fuel savings and service level compliance,” concluded Klimczyk.

About ALK
ALK Technologies has been developing innovative mobile navigation and transportation technology solutions since 1979. ALK’s award-winning CoPilot™ GPS software is increasingly being adopted as the navigation choice for mobile operators, hardware OEMs and systems integrators globally, while the company’s PC*MILER® routing and mapping fleet solutions are used by over 22,000 transportation, logistics and manufacturing companies worldwide. Find out more about ALK at www.alk.eu.com


About Blackbay
Blackbay delivers real-time mobile worker solutions that enable business process improvements to Supply Chain and Field Service mission-critical operations.  
The Company is a market leader in the rapidly growing enterprise mobility market delivering mobile data solutions for over 15 years to a growing list of premium clients.  Its core activity is mobile software application development, offering organisations significant return on investment based upon reduced costs, increased sales and improved productivity and service levels. Blackbay develops its solutions both on the back-end infrastructure and on handheld PDA and Smartphone devices.  Its iConnect transaction server allows the company to offer its premium customers a suite of mobility ‘products’ as part of a fully managed one-stop Mobile Application Service.

Blackbay, who received funding from Close Ventures a leading UK venture capital provider, is a Microsoft Gold Partner with Mobility Competency and one of only 20 organisations to sit on the Microsoft Windows Mobile Advisory Council.
Blackbay’s, product line currently consists of the following:  Delivery Connect, a mobile freight solution for real-time job tracking; and Service Connect, a business mobility solution targeted at field service business.  
For more information on Blackbay please visit:  www.blackbay.com  
For more information on Close Ventures please visit  www.closeventures.co.uk