In the News

Proxpro promotes timely biz travelers

Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology - by Efrain Viscarolasaga Mass High Tech

May 29, 2008

Mobile location-based services typically have been designed as convenience and entertainment applications aimed at a specific demographic, mostly people under 25.

Proxpro Inc., however, is looking to bring such applications to the business world, and this week the company launched its first application combining a user's calendar with location and travel information to help ensure that business travelers are never late. Called Proxpro Prompt, the Weston-based company's software uses global-positioning data, real-time and historical traffic information and the user's calendar to provide a notification of when he should depart to ensure a timely arrival. According to Julian Bourne, founder and CEO of Proxpro, the application sounds simple but can be habit-forming. In its closed beta test, it has demonstrated significant "stickiness."

"We were planning on reaching about 15 percent as hard core users (using the application four or more times per week)," said Bourne. "But we're getting closer to 40 percent, which shows how sticky the application can be."

Prompt takes a destination and a meeting time and automatically pushes updated information to the user, displaying a prompt on the user's phone when it is time to leave.

Location-based services are gaining ground in the mobile domain. In a February report, analyst firm Gartner Inc. predicted the number of LBS subscribers will grow to nearly 300 million worldwide, with revenue of $8 billion, by 2011, up from 16 million subscribers and $485 million in revenue in 2007.

Prompt currently is only available on GPS-enabled handsets from Blackberry.