You recently launched an improved version of your Wayfinder Navigator in India.  What demand do you see for GPS and GIS products in India and how do you think they will be used in the travel and tourism arena?

I think the demand is going to be very, very big. In some ways, you can look at it, if you go into any bookstore today, you will find a big section of any bookstore being occupied by travel literature in one form or another. I believe that a lot of that information that you today buy in bookstores will be delivered over handheld devices, whether it’s by mobile phone or something similar, with connection to the latest data. I’m convinced that’s going to happen. It’s a very cheap and effective way to deliver up-to-date information to an end-user.

India, as a travel destination, from abroad as well as the domestic tourism industry, is already big and I’m sure is going to be growing a lot in the years to come. In my mind, that is the main driver behind this development. Then, the fact that GPS has become so affordable.

Just go back three years and we were buying Bluetooth GPS at the cost of 150 euros. Today, a handset manufacturer can put it in a phone for three euros. That development has, of course, enabled this to become mass marketed. We will see GPS in every single handset, I’m sure, that operators, end-users, handset manufacturers, everyone will want to put that GPS to use in different ways. For mapping and so on, I see no reason that the fastest growing mobile market in the world will not experience a lot of different types of applications in this area. So very big, I think, and in particular in travel and tourism.

What are the challenges to developing a mapping application for India?

I think the challenge is twofold. First, it’s reasonably new so that the companies that are doing this are, even if they may have been at it for a long time, because there are some applications that do not necessarily require the exactness that navigation does, but more like tracking and things like that where you’ll want to know within a certain radius where things are. If you go to navigation it is a challenge. You have both locally active companies as well as the big ones like Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ who are investing heavily into building these maps.

Generally speaking, it’s new and that’s a challenge. Of course, you start with the urban areas where you have most of the potential usage in the early parts. That investment is taking place now. The second challenge is that in a country developing as quickly as India, the road network and the infrastructure and so on changes a lot – a lot more than what you would see in a more mature economy. So that is, I would say, the second challenge.

Having said that, I have been amazed by how well, I think, that things are working in the big cities. There are still things, given the rapid change in the infrastructure, one has to set the expectations right. It could be that you come to roadwork that is not reported anywhere and you have to go a different direction. Or a one-way street changes direction and so on.

Overall, I’m impressed by the quality that we have seen in the urban areas. I want to stress urban areas. I think if you go outside, there you will have a good overview of where the roads are and so on but you may not have all the traffic rules, forbidden right turn or one-way streets or so on. That will be more for you to find out.

How well should travelers around India expect a mapping solution to be when navigating rural areas or less well traveled parts of big cities?

I think the method of navigating in India today is that you stop and ask people. For rural areas, if you have a language ability, that is the way to go. I think it’s going to be like that for quite some time. I would say it’s very reliable if you’re looking at going from point of interest to point of interest, which is very much what you can do.

Having said that, it’s critical to really populate the maps with lots of points of interest and buildings and landmarks that are well known. In that context, I feel very confident to be in India and finding my way in any of the major metropolitan areas with GPS navigation.

If you could jump in the car and drive anywhere in India except the Taj Mahal, where would you go?

I have been to India a couple of times. The first trip I went to India was a delegation from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, which was led by the Swedish king. We had very special treatment. We were a group of 40 Swedish people from the telecommunications industry. We got a chance to go see the President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. We were also allowed to go out in his gardens to see the absolutely beautiful place. There were birds that you only see in cages in Europe. There were parrots flying around. It was amazing. It was fantastic, very big. If you look around in Delhi for quite a few days, it was very crowded. You come into this vast park. That was really, really beautiful.  That would be the spot I would go back to, actually.