Landmark to enter information service joint venture

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Thursday 12 April 2001

Landmark Information Group ["Landmark"] is entering a unique partnership to create a definitive positional index of millions of points of interest [POI] in Britain, both natural and man-made.

Landmark the property information specialist has teamed up with Ordnance Survey and a leading business database developer in a ground-breaking joint venture designed to meet the growing demand for information services based on mobile technology and the Internet. The database will help pioneering service providers answer basic questions such as "where's my nearest…?" and "how do I get to…..?" which are fuelling more and more online services capable of pinpointing the location of specific businesses, leisure facilities, tourist attractions and other amenities.

PointX Ltd, a new joint venture involving Landmark, Ordnance Survey, and business database developers, Red Volcano, aims to work with these service providers, enabling them to either enhance existing product offerings or create completely new services by adding an accurate spatial dimension to their data. They will be able to draw on the information and supply it as mapping, text messages, voicemail, and other online applications.

PointX will deliver a powerful business-to-business database of location-based information derived from Ordnance Survey and other data suppliers. The database will include a range of features, from petrol stations to picnic sites, and amusment parks to public toilets. The database is designed for easy take-up by Internet service providers, government agencies, telecom firms and many others seeking to develop consumer-orientated services.

The joint venture approach is the first of its kind for Ordnance Survey, which is positioning itself as the content provider of choice for location-based services in the new information economy. PointX Managing Director Peter Staniczenko says: "PointX is a creative and innovative response by the partners to the challenges and demands of new mobile technologies. Many of the promises held out by these services cannot be delivered without the kind of data that PointX will provide." Christopher Roper, the new company's Executive Chairman and a director of Landmark, adds: "No single player had all the answers. We had to break down fences, pooling ideas and resources to come up with PointX. Each of the three partners is a market leader in its field. PointX will settle for nothing less." A signing ceremony for PointX Ltd. was held at Ordnance Survey's Southampton headquarters on March 30 ahead of a formal launch later this year. Joining Mr Staniczenko and Mr Roper were Vanessa Lawrence, Ordnance Survey's Director General and Chief Executive, and Adrian Gregory, Development Director and Founder of Red Volcano.

Notes:
1. Landmark produces site-specific information services from its database of property-related and environmental data, the only publishing company to hold national coverage of OS large-scale mapping on-line. Customers include environmental consultants, lawyers and surveyors as well as property, insurance and utility companies. Landmark works closely with the Environment Agency, Ordnance Survey and British Geological Survey and many other data providers.

2. Formed in 1988 Red Volcano Limited is a leading business information solutions company based in High Wycombe. Its core product is a comprehensive UK classified business database known as The Business Census, which it develops for clients' Internet directory and marketing applications. Red Volcano also provides customer relationship management services including data enhancement, research, database management, and running marketing and sales programmes.