SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept 17, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ --
Capping a successful
second annual SiRFecosystem's Location 2.0 Summit, SiRF Technology Holdings,
Inc.
(SIRF:SIRF
Last:
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,
)
, a leading provider of GPS-powered location platforms,
today announced the recipients of the prestigious Summit Awards. Nokia
received the Leadership Award for its strategic commitment to driving the mass
market to adopt the more widespread use of location, and Research in Motion
received the Pioneer Award for its ground breaking dedication to making
location a core element of its product line. Additionally, Summit attendees
voted to give the People's Choice Awards to Fast-Pitch presenters, with
innovative location enabled applications, Dial Directions for the Consumer
category, Proxpro, Inc. for the Enterprise category and Microsoft for the
Next-Generation category.
"RIM took an early and proactive stance toward location technology by
including and promoting GPS functionality in virtually all its BlackBerry
handsets, and for this we have honored their efforts with the Pioneer Award,"
said Kanwar Chadha, founder of SiRF. "Nokia, with their overall market
leadership in the mobile handset industry, is being honored this year with the
Leadership Award for driving location to mainstream consumers. By promoting
the use of location with Nokia Maps as well as their recent acquisitions of
Navteq and Gate5, Nokia is making location an integral part of the mobile
phone platform."
The Leadership Award recognizes companies who have demonstrated undisputed
leadership in the location industry and have made a major impact in the
marketplace, an award won by the GPS Wing of the U.S. Air Force. The Pioneer
Award recognizes companies who have created ground breaking technologies,
products or services for end-user benefit, an award won by Google Earth last
year. New this year, the People's Choice Awards recognize companies for their
cutting-edge technology and innovative use cases that promote location as a
part of daily life.
Dial Directions, winner of the People's Choice Award for the consumer
category, presented their platform for voice-activated mobile services across
different devices to power navigation & directions, local search, directory
assistance, and other location-based services. The platform enables industry
partners to expand their mobile services with a voice-activated interface,
letting consumers enter locations (such as addresses, business searches, and
points of interest) naturally by speaking rather than typing.
Proxpro, Inc., awarded the People's Choice Award for the enterprise
category, presented their product, Prompt, a "push" technology that optimizes
navigation and traffic information based on a personal calendar. Prompt
compares the user's current location with the time and location of their next
appointment, displays the fastest route to avoid current and predicted traffic
and tells the user exactly when to leave.
Microsoft, awarded the People's Choice Award for the next-generation
technologies category, presented a set of algorithms developed by Microsoft
Research that can predict a driver's destination and route as they drive.
With Microsoft's prediction algorithms, navigation devices can give
location-based alerts, including road warnings and ads, before a driver
actually encounters a traffic problem or an advertiser, giving them time to
make a decision, even in familiar territory when a driver has not entered
their destination.
"Our sincere congratulations go to all the award winners for their
outstanding commitment and dedication to using the power of location to
transform the mobile world," said Andrew Seybold, founder and president of
Andrew Seybold, Inc. "I would also like to thank the wonderful lineup of
speakers and panel members at the Summit who inspired and challenged attendees
with their viewpoints and expertise, and to invite everyone to meet again at
next year's event."
The second annual Location 2.0 Summit attracted more than 200 of the top
global location industry executives to one of the world's foremost strategic
forums for new LBS innovations. Providing an intimate setting to encourage
dialogue among all participants, this year's event was hosted by renowned
wireless analyst Andrew Seybold who shared his insights on the most effective
LBS strategies that he has championed from the very early days of the
industry. After a welcoming address by industry veteran Mohan Gyani and an
insightful opening keynote address from Barry West, president of the Xohm
business unit of Sprint Nextel, attendees became active participants in the
afternoon's three interactive panel discussions. Other keynotes included
Christof Hellmis, director of Navigation and Routing Solutions at Nokia and
Dr. Vincent Tao, director of the Microsoft Local, Mobile Search and Virtual
Earth business unit who discussed trends in the consumer and enterprise
markets for location enabled services. Held in question and answer format, the
panels tapped into the expertise of the distinguished panel members and
explored key aspects of the location ecosystem. The afternoon concluded with
closing remarks by Kanwar Chadha, SiRF's founder and VP of marketing, followed
by the Location 2.0 Summit Awards reception and program.
Other featured speakers at the second annual Location 2.0 Summit include
Masaaki Maeda, president and CEO of NTT DoCoMo; Rich Miner, group manager of
Mobile Platforms for Google; Steve Glagow, vice president of Orange Partner at
Orange-France Telecom; Ed Schmit, associate director of the Enterprise
Developer Program at AT&T; Joe Astroth, executive vice president and general
manager of Location Services at Autodesk; Magnus Nilsson, CEO of Wayfinder
Systems; Niren Hiro, vice president of business development for Admob; Jerry
Panagrossi, vice president and general manager of North America for Symbian,
Inc.; Randy Frantz, director of Telecommunications and LBS at ESRI; Per Enge,
professor at Stanford University and director of the GPS Research Laboratory;
Eric White, vice president at Trimble Mobile Solutions; Dean Fledderjohn,
general manager at Kyocera Wireless Corp. and Asokan Thiyagarajan, technology
evangelist for Motorola. Panel moderators included Brad Smith, technology
editor at Wireless Week and Marcus Torchia, Senior Analyst at Yankee Group.
This year's Location 2.0 Summit sponsors are Diamond sponsor Microsoft
Windows Embedded, Gold sponsors ESRI and Wayfinder, Bronze sponsors Locr,
Motorola, Pacific Datavision, and Samsung, and Media sponsors Berg Insight,
Canalys, GPS World and GIS Development.
About SiRF Technology
SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc. develops and markets location platforms
based on semiconductor and software products that are designed to enable
location-awareness utilizing GPS and other location technologies, enhanced by
wireless connectivity and multimedia capabilities for high-volume mobile
consumer devices and commercial applications. SiRF's technology has been
integrated into a wide range of mobile consumer devices such as automobile
navigation systems, portable navigation devices (PNDs), mobile phones, mobile
computers, GPS-based peripherals and handheld GPS devices, and into commercial
applications such as location servers, asset tracking devices and fleet
management systems. SiRF markets and sells its products in four target
platforms: wireless handheld devices such as mobile phones; automotive
electronics systems, including navigation and telematics systems; consumer
electronics products such as recreational GPS handhelds, mobile gaming
machines, digital cameras and wearable devices; and mobile computing systems,
including personal digital assistants, notebook computers, universal mobile
personal computers (UMPCs) and mobile internet devices. Founded in 1995, SiRF
is headquartered in San Jose, California, and has sales offices, design
centers and research facilities around the world. The company trades on the
NASDAQ Stock Exchange under the symbol SIRF. Additional information about
SiRF and its location technology solutions can be found at
http://www.sirf.com.
Forward Looking Statements
Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters set
forth in this press release, including, but not limited to, statements
regarding market adoption of location, location as an integral part of the
mobile phone platform, the strategy of the award winners, are forward-looking
statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995. Words such as "to," "being," "possible," "may," "will," "addresses,"
"designed to," "expand", "provide," "believe," and similar expressions are
intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements are not
guarantees of future performance and should not be considered as an indication
of future performance. SiRF's actual results have inherent risks and
uncertainties, including, among others, demand and market acceptance for our
products and those of our customers, the market for GPS-based location
awareness, risks associated with the semiconductor industry and other risks
and uncertainties discussed in the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for
the quarter ended June 30, 2008 and from time to time in SiRF's SEC reports.
These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. We do not
undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements.
SOURCE SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc.
http://www.sirf.com
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