In a landmark contract, South African digital map developer, MapIT and global provider of electronics and mechatronics to the automotive industry, Siemens VDO Trading GmbH, have agreed on MapIT as a supplier of mapping for on-board navigation solutions in South Africa.

Local distributors of Siemens products, Control Instruments Automotive (CI Auto) and vehicle infotainment specialists, Tier One Electronics, will support Siemens VDO's endeavours in developing affordable navigation for the South African market, using MapIT's e-map technology.

After lengthy negotiations, this four-way partnership is a decisive step in realising fully integrated transport telematics systems in the vehicle navigation landscape of SA. As new technologies provide us with access to more and more information, ever more quickly, making for ever greater mobility, the products with which we access this information are changing ever more rapidly - all the more reason to choose development associates carefully.

As a support partner to the automotive industry the world over, Siemens' core products include information and car communication systems with instrumentation, and audio and navigation terminals that integrate increasingly complex technologies. To ensure that drivers are not distracted from their real task of driving safely from A to B, mapset accuracy and coverage cannot be compromised.

Siemens VDO's choice of MapIT as map provider can be seen as a major accomplishment as, until now, Siemens have had few quality alternatives for mapping data for South Africa.

"This is a proud moment for MapIT as we have now been selected by an international company with the stature of Siemens VDO to supply mapping for their navigational applications. The data quality and wide coverage sees our seamless mapsets for southern Africa being chosen by more and more players in the competitive world of vehicle navigation, asset tracking and fleet management," states MapIT MD, Ray Wilkinson. "The Siemens/MapIT agreement is evidence of our maps becoming the de facto standard in mapping for Africa. In the USA and Europe, in-car navigation is commonplace. Our maps will assist the likes of CI Auto and Tier One to bring competitively priced navigation to a much wider audience."

Within the next few months, CI Auto will bring to market the Siemens VDO satellite navigation equipment and Tier One, the US-based Audiovox version of it, using MapIT's mapsets. Siemens holds the rights to the mapping licence and CI Auto and Tier One will share the mapping data provided by MapIT.

As Siemens VDO looks to strengthen its position in driver assistance systems and CI Auto and Tier One put the products on the shelves, South African motorists will come to appreciate the comfort of today's modern navigation systems, just as they do in Europe and the US.

For more information contact MapIT, 012 345 8015, admin@map-it.co.za, www.mapit.co.za