2010 GIS On Blackberry Award Winners

Research In Motion and TDC Group, Inc. announce the 2nd Annual GIS on BlackBerry Awards Winners.

July 8, 2010 - Dayton, OH - Research In Motion Limitedand TDC Group, Inc. announce the 2nd Annual GIS on BlackBerry Awards winners.  Coinciding with the ESRI 2010 International User Conference, the GIS on BlackBerry awards recognize the best GIS applications for Freeance Mobile software running on BlackBerry smartphones.  Winners will be recognized at the BlackBerry SIG Luncheon on Tuesday, July 13 in Room 31 B.

Winners in the following categories are:

Blackberry Beacon Award For Innovative Freeance View Application
Winner: City of Hartford, Connecticut 

With a population of over 120,000 people, the City of Hartford, Connecticut was looking for a mobile computing solution to assist multiple departments with correctly identifying street addresses during field service operations.

City inspectors from the Billing, Fire, Housing and Code, Health and Sanitary, and Police Departments were having difficulty determining the correct address for specific properties against which they wanted to post a violation.  Buildings and lots were sometimes not posted with addresses, or after-hours workers could not see street addresses in the dark.

The solution for field workers was the implementation of Freeance View software by the Metro Hartford Information Services (MHIS).  By combining existing ESRI ArcGIS services and BlackBerry smartphones on the Verizon network, MHIS quickly created a mobile GIS application that allows field inspectors to zoom to their current GPS location, select property on a live interactive map, and find the correct street address and property owner.

The Freeance View application is now saving considerable time both in the field and office. The City estimates savings of approximately 30 man-hours per week or $52,000 per year.

Best Application For Private/Commercial Sector
Winner:  LIME Jamaica

LIME Jamaica is the telecommunications service provider for Jamaica supplying both landlines and wireless services throughout the Caribbean.

Jamaica has no formal system to assign addresses for rural areas making it difficult for field repair and installation technicians to locate the customers who need their services.  To resolve this inefficiency, LIME implemented Freeance Mobile with existing ArcGIS map services and over 600 BlackBerry smartphones already deployed to company employees.  The new mobile BlackBerry application allows them to search for customers by service number and location of access points.  Not only are customers located more quickly, but outside plant can be updated with GPS based mapping and geo-tagged digital photos using Freeance Mobile software.

LIME is also evaluating additional revenue streams by using Freeance Mobile to create an interactive BlackBerry map based on Yellow Pages for its customers.

Best Application For Public/Government Sector
Winner: US Bureau Of Land Management

The nation's largest land management organization with over 11,000 employees is challenged to find a low cost GIS/GPS solution for field workers.  And with 2,900 BlackBerry smartphones already in the hands of BLM employees, the organization is testing the use of Freeance Mobile.

Past GIS/GPS solutions at BLM  used ruggedized military spec laptops and dedicated GPS devices that were too heavy and complicated for field work.

Using Freeance Mobile for the Wildland Fire Management team at BLM, GIS on BlackBerry is expected to considerably enhance location-based fieldwork and improve speed and accuracy of collection, navigation and analysis of spatial information critical for life and property.

Best Application for Field Services Organization
Renfrewshire Council, Scotland

Renfrewshire Council is the local governance and administrative agency for a population of 170,000 citizens and provides a wide range of services including education, planning, housing, transportation and emergency management services.

The Council is actively pursuing mobile computing to drive down the cost of service delivery, where the ability to deliver real-time GIS information to officers in the field is essential.  The Council has implemented Freeance View software, ArcGIS software and BlackBerry smartphones to assist with emergency response especially during floods, street furniture survey and inspection, and ground maintenance surveys.

Due to the heightened security nature of emergency response a secure communication channel is essential, at which the BlackBerry platform excels.

Freeance Mobile software will be on display in the BlackBerry booth 1305 at the 2010 ESRI International UC.  Go to http://www.freeance.com/esriuc/ for more details. Freeance Mobile 5.0, featuring map digitizing on BlackBerry smartphones, will premiere at the BlackBerry SIG Luncheon during the ESRI International User Conference on Tuesday July 13th at noon in Room 31 B.

 For a sneak peek of Freeance 5.0 map digitizing on Blackberry smartphones, visit esriuc.freeance.com

 About TDC Group, Inc.

TDC Group, Inc. (TDC) is a pioneer developer of cost-saving mobile location solutions that accelerate workflow and enhance productivity for the enterprise market. Our Freeance Mobile software brings enterprise GIS to BlackBerry smartphones by way of intuitive applications that feature interactive maps, database forms and searching, tracking and geo-tagged digital photos. Government, utilities and corporations of all sizes use Freeance Mobile to complete work faster, save money and increase service responsiveness. Freeance software solutions are used by organizations in North America, Europe and Australia.