With plans to set up a regional office in East Africa, 10-year old mapIT, which began as a data provider in South Africa, now covers 104 countries and more than 38.4 million kilometres of road coverage globally. The firm views Google Maps entry into Africa as the birth of strategic partnership and not a competitor.
Google Maps has for the past five years offered street maps, a route planner for travelling by foot or public transport, and urban business locater. Its entry into South Africa was perceived as a threat to indigenous mapping service providers although mapIt maintains Google Maps is not a threat, but a mapping partner.
MapIT managing director Etienne Louw is however of the view that a strategic partnership would be important for both mapIT and Google Maps since the firm is willing to show Google Maps around Africa.
A leading international enabler of accurate location-based platforms, mapIT’s features including Mapping APIs has one line map search, turn-by-turn navigation, supports POI (Points of Interest), Live Traffic feeds from TomTom. It can also be self-hosted, or accessed through the cloud computing-based mapping service.
Louw told HumanIPo the firm’s growth reflects the satisfaction of its clients and no competitor can take it off the ground since mapIT has been in business for long and recognizes rural Africa better than any other firm.
“We are a bona fide one-stop-shop for companies that require a platform to develop customised LBS,” added Louw, “indeed, we now provide an integrated package based on the world’s leading solutions to our partner network across the Sub-Saharan Africa region.”
Four years since Google Maps entry, mapIT is still offering Web Mapping, Mobile Mapping, Digital Mapping Services, Location Based Services (LBS) and Location Business Intelligence across many industries.
Google Maps has a Web mapping service application and technology and powers many map-based services like the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit. Other applications include maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API.
MapIT phenomenal step was its recent integration over 15 000 postal codes in South Africa into its unique Address Validation Tool (AVT) for businesses to used by organisations of all sizes to ensure that their addresses are captured correctly and easily accessible.
This service covers South Africa. The AVT is a multi-platform support component that allows users to integrate the tool into new or existing solutions on both web and desktop applications.
“Part of our growth is to ensure that our partners move forward with us. We believe it is important that businesses have the opportunity to realise their visions and designs in an environment that meets world-class requirements for digital mapping solutions,” Louw concluded.
