deCarta Powers POI Search for Major Mobile Handset Maker

Advanced Search Engine Replaces Google Local Search in 122 Countries

deCarta, Inc., an independent LBS platform company, is now providing the local search function for a worldwide, top-five mobile handset manufacturer. deCarta has been hosting and running the search service since August 7 using its advanced geosearch engine — L2 — and has replaced the search service previously provided by Google. The service delivers millions of responses per day to this handset manufacturer’s local search and mapping application to users in 122 countries.

deCarta’s L2 is a high-performance, scalable local search engine with single line input and intuitive user interface. deCarta sources and indexes map and POI (points of interest) content from a wide variety of sources globally but also enables customers to easily index, control and search on their own content. The customer service announced utilizes TomTom map and POI content.

deCarta’s L2 can be used as a pure geocoder for address search, or for POI search, or simultaneously as a combination of the two mixed in a single-line search query — with the additional ability to tune this behavior at runtime. This gives developers maximum flexibility and creativity in producing their applications. deCarta recently expanded country coverage to enable its customers to offer global services.

The L2 Search engine is an integral component of deCarta’s LBS platform which provides specialized geospatial technologies for maps, routing, navigation, geocoding, local search and geo-data integration and processing. deCarta provides its white-label LBS platform to companies that wish to offer their own customized, branded LBS services as opposed to utilizing industry standard services such as Bing or Google.

deCarta has two deployment options for its platform: a hosted LBS Platform Service (PaaS) or, alternatively, customers can self-host either on-premise or in a cloud service such as Amazon’s AWS.  Both approaches utilize deCarta’s REST API architecture and can scale to support billions of maps and searches and millions of users per month.

“We are quite happy with the market reaction to L2 since its introduction last year,” said J. Kim Fennell, CEO of deCarta. “We’re seeing large mobile, telematics and automotive customers switch to L2 in competition against other local search engines and geocoders such as Google, Bing, Nokia/Here and Pitney Bowes. Customers appreciate L2’s technology advantages, customization capabilities, flexible content offerings, less restrictive license terms and our superior customer service — all of which creates a more satisfied end customer experience.”

L2 enables deCarta’s customers to offer flexible, advanced local search capabilities that are on par with Google Maps but beyond other search engines. Examples include:

• Single line entry of POI or address or both
• Fast typeahead, predictive entry – ideal for mobile devices
• High tolerance for misspellings and partial entries
• Random ordering of address parameters
• Search for a POI near a POI such as “ATMs near AMC Theater” or “Parking near SFO”
• Search for POI near a specific address, i.e. “Parking near 1234 Main Street”

Furthermore, L2 can be integrated with deCarta’s patented “Search Along A Route” technology. This combined with the ability to index custom content and boost result rankings gives automotive OEMs and service providers the ability to offer more advanced and helpful “driver-centric” connected car services.

For more information visit www.decarta.com or go to the demo at http://labs.decarta.com. Developers can find technical details at http://developer.decarta.com.