Technology news and Jobs arrow Telecommunications arrow Australian mapping technology streets ahead of Google Earth?
Australian mapping technology streets ahead of Google Earth? E-mail
by Stuart Corner   
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Perth based Ipernica (ASX: IPR) has announced plans to acquire local geospatial media company NearMap, claiming that its "breakthrough technology enables photomaps to be updated much more frequently than other providers such as Google Earth, which can be many months out of date."

According to Ipernica, "NearMap's technology enables very high resolution aerial photomaps with multiple angle views to be created at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions...For the first time, people will be able to see the environment change over time, as NearMap's online photomaps allow users to move back and forward month by month to see changes occur, such as the construction of a home or development of a new road. [And] with NearMap's revolutionary approach to high resolution photomaps, it has achieved its objective of a 20-fold operating cost reduction over current industry practices."

Ipernica says that NearMap's ultimate goal is to cover over 20 percent of the world's population (700 cities) with photomaps updated at least on a monthly basis. And Ipernica is setting its sights very high and positioning itself to challenge two of the biggest behemoths in the IT industry (Microsoft and Google), saying that: "As the global US$400 billion media industry and US$10 billion geospatial industry evolves, and with consumer interest created by Google Earth, media companies will increasingly deliver online location based services and advertising to exploit consumer and industry demand. NearMap is positioned to meet this demand by delivering significantly better resolution, multiple views and more frequent updates."

And it will do so with modest finances. Ipernica will pay $4 million in cash for NearMap plus $12 million worth of Ipernica shares (60 million at a deemed issue price of $0.20 per share) and 12.5 million Ipernica options at a strike price of $0.40, with a two year expiry period. Ipernica will immediately inject up to $1 million into NearMap to support further growth. It plans to raise between $1 million and $2 million in equity by the issue of shares   to strategic partners and institutional and high net worth investors prior to completion of the acquisition.

According to Ipernica, NearMap has fully automated the process of creating very high definition photomaps and has developed a complete chain of technologies to address these challenging requirements.
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