Tele Atlas to speed development of location based services for Symbian smartphones

London, 17 October 2006 – Tele Atlas, a leading global geographic content provider, today announced a partnership with Symbian to generate joint support actions for application developers using Tele Atlas data with Symbian OS™.

The move brings together two complementary industry leaders. Tele Atlas is a world leader in high quality digital mapping data and associated information. Symbian creates and licenses Symbian OS, the market leading open operating system for smartphones.

In creating these developer tools Tele Atlas will bring content and experience with geo-data and location based services (LBS), while Symbian will bring operating system expertise. Support begins with a series of training materials for developers of LBS applications, including application-specific white papers and webinars on the use of Tele Atlas data in Symbian OS applications. Case studies of successful LBS developments for smartphones will provide further information and help. Where appropriate, Tele Atlas partners will be invited to demonstrate successful developments. Additional tools will follow as Tele Atlas and Symbian expand this dynamic support program.

Tele Atlas Europe
“It’s crystal clear that smartphones will be important in the lives of people that are constantly seeking up-to-date information on many subjects, no matter where they are at the time. There is real market potential for developers to create new applications to match the wishes of the growing number of Symbian smartphone users. Therefore, both Symbian and Tele Atlas have great developer support activities. Working in partnership will certainly accelerate the rate at which valuable location based services appear on smartphones,” comments Jack Reinelt, Managing Director and COO of Tele Atlas Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Symbian
“This partnership is a step forward for location based services. As more people become used to using GPS solutions on their mobile phones, the more they come to expect from them. By teaming up with Tele Atlas, we’re giving developers the support they need to produce the next-generation of location based services,” says Richard Wloch, Product Portfolio Director, Symbian.

Tele Atlas has another new initiative to stimulate implementation of successful application developments — a series of special events named The Tele Atlas Innovator Series. To begin, finalists selected from members of the Tele Atlas DeveloperLink community are being offered an opportunity to meet with Dow Jones editors and venture capitalists that wish to invest in LBS applications. This will take place at Dow Jones VentureWire’s Wireless Ventures conference in San Francisco, April 2007.

The Tele Atlas DeveloperLink program gives Internet, mobile and other next-generation application developers access to sample data and application development tools that can help bring innovative concepts to reality. DeveloperLink was designed to make it easy for application developers to establish a business relationship with Tele Atlas — the leading provider of rich, fresh, accurate data that powers the world’s most essential geographic solutions.

About Tele Atlas

Founded in 1984 in the Netherlands, Tele Atlas delivers the digital maps and dynamic location content that power the world’s most essential geographic solutions. The information is the foundation for a wide range of personal and in-car navigation systems, mobile and Internet map applications that help GPS system users find the places, products and services they need, wherever they are. Tele Atlas also works with business partners who deliver critical applications for emergency, business fleet and infrastructure services. The company employs 2,300 full-time staff and contract cartographers at offices in 20 countries around the world and uses a sophisticated network of drivers, mobile mapping vans and thousands of data sources to regularly update its maps. Tele Atlas is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (TA6) and on Euronext Amsterdam (TA). For more information, visit www.teleatlas.com

About Symbian

Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market leading open operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones, also known as smartphones.

Symbian licenses Symbian OS to the world’s leading handset manufacturers and has built close co-operative business relationships with leading companies across the mobile industry.  During H1 2006, 24 million Symbian smartphones were sold worldwide to over 250 major network operators, bringing the total number of Symbian OS phones shipped to 82.8 million.

Symbian is hosting The Symbian Smartphone Show, 17-18 October 2006, at ExCel, in London, UK. For more information or to register or visit http://www.symbiansmartphoneshow.com/2006/

Symbian has its headquarters in London, United Kingdom with offices in the United States, Europe (England and Sweden (UIQ Technology AB)), Israel and Asia (India, P.R. China, Korea, and Japan). For more information, please visit www.symbian.com

Media Enquiries

Dirk Snauwaert Public Relations Director Europe Tele Atlas +32 9 244 88 37 dirk.snauwaert@teleatlas.com

Recent news

Symbian unveils Q1 2008 results

Symbian today released unaudited financial and operational figures for the first quarter ended 31 March 2008

Symbian to publish Q1 results

Symbian to publish Q1 2008 financial and operation results

New Symbian Ready program

New Symbian Ready technology validation program