2008-09-12 RoadJack en Spotmaster verenigen krachten Helemaal als een verrassing kwam het niet: de strategische alliantie tussen RoadJack en Spotmaster. Beide bedrijven werken via distributeur Brightpoint en beide bedrijven verkopen innovatieve mobility oplossingen via het zakelijke telecom en IT dealerkanaal. Volgens Dave Stolk van Brightpoint zijn Spotmaster en RoadJack voor 95% complementair aan elkaar en ontstaat er nu een ijzersterke combinatie die ‘best of both worlds’ biedt aan bedrijven met een buitendienst. Spotmaster mag gerust ‘best in class’ worden genoemd op het gebied van tracking & tracing, RoadJack onderscheidt zich in de markt met unieke proposities op het gebied van Mobiele Werkbonnen. Vandaag heeft RoadJack de dienst ‘TT’ geïntroduceerd: een nieuw track & trace systeem dat werkt via mobiele telefoons met GPS. “Wij kregen van klanten en dealers steeds vaker de vraag of wij ook locatiegegevens aan de mobiele werkbon zouden kunnen koppelen. We moesten een afweging maken: gaan wij zelf investeren in de ontwikkeling van een track & trace functionaliteit of gaan wij op zoek naar een strategische partner?” aldus Niels van den Berg, CEO van Flying Bytes Mobile. “Na marktonderzoek kwam Spotmaster met afstand als beste uit de bus: Spotmaster zit nu ‘inside, onder de motorkap’ bij RoadJack TT.” Volgens Peter van der Leeuw, CEO van Spotmaster, biedt de strategische alliantie zowel RoadJack als Spotmaster belangrijke voordelen: “Spotmaster heeft de afgelopen 4 jaar enorm veel kennis en ervaring opgebouwd op het gebied van track & trace. Inmiddels worden vele duizenden voertuigen dagelijks ‘getracked’ en ‘getraced’ via de systemen van Spotmaster. RoadJack is dé specialist als het gaat om zakelijke applicaties op mobiele telefoons. RoadJack heeft op dit specifieke gebied de afgelopen 4 jaar grote expertise en een enorm track record opgebouwd. Dankzij de samenwerking met RoadJack kunnen wij nu ook mobiele werkbonnen aan ons portfolio toevoegen. Bovendien worden wij flexibeler nu wij, naast de blackbox, ook een track & trace functie kunnen bieden via de mobiele telefoon.” Over de doelstelling van de startegische alliantie zijn Van der Leeuw en Van den Berg eenduidig: door optimaal van elkaars expertise gebruik te maken, kunnen wij veel sneller innovatieve diensten introduceren en kunnen wij veel sneller groeien. Onze ambitie is om de nummer 1 te worden op het gebied van zakelijke mobility oplossingen in Europa. Over Flying Bytes Mobile BV en RoadJack RoadJack, bekend van de Mobiele Werkbon, is een product van Flying Bytes Mobile BV in Den Haag. Sinds 2004 legt de organisatie zich volledig toe op het ontwikkelen van innovatieve applicaties voor mobiele telefoons. Het bedrijf richt zich op bedrijven met een buitendienst. Kijk voor meer informatie op www.roadjack.nl. Over Spotmaster BV Spotmaster BV is producent van Track & Trace systemen en is gevestigd in Den Bosch. Sinds 2004 legt de organisatie zich volledig toe op het ontwikkelen van track & trace oplossingen. Kijk voor meer informatie op www.spotmaster.com. 2008-06-30 Update break This page will not be updated in July and August. 2008-06-27 Wireless thermometer We are about to release our next accessory for the YellowSpot: a wireless thermometer. The thermometer can for example be placed inside a truck trailer and sends the temperature to the YellowSpot which sends the data realtime to our servers. One feature on the server side is that a warning message can be sent when the temperature is getting too high. 2008-06-20 Summer is coming ... in the Netherlands too We launched two summer promotions in the Netherlands as well. First we offer a reduced subscription price from 14.95 euro for only 12.95 euro. The second offer consists of a YellowSpot plus a 3 years subscription for only 699 euro. Both offers are valid for each unit that is installed before 31st of August. 2008-06-13 Summer is coming ... in Belgium We launched a special summer promotion in Belgium. We offer a YellowSpot with a national SIM-card from only 14.95 euro per month and a YellowSpot with a pan-European SIM-card from only 19.95 euro. So you can track and trace any object in Europe for less than 1 euro a day. The YellowSpot itself costs only 339 euro. And of course optionally it is possible to identify different drivers with our iButton or finger print reader, measure the temperature in the trailer with our wireless thermometer, check the times that doors were opened and closed, ... 2008-06-06 SpotSMS: free SMS messages From today customers of Spotmaster can send SMS messages for free. These messages include for example automatic alerts when a vehicle is moving outside a zone or is entering into a zone (geofence). This free service will last until the end of August, but we hope to be able to extend it for free for a much longer time. If we have to charge for this message service, the cost will still be limited to only a few eurocents. 2008-05-30 iButton We delivered our first YellowSpot with iButton. The iButton is a small electronic key for drivers (and passengers) to identify themselves in an easy and fast way. The combination of a YellowSpot and an iButton gives not only information about the vehicles but about personnel as well. 2008-05-23 Spotmaster SIM cards? We are investigating the possibilities to become an MVNO and publish our own SIM-cards. MVNO is short for Mobile Virtual Network Operator and we would use different operators as our facilitators. This way we are able to offer our customers much lower costs for mobile data traffic between the YellowSpot and our servers. We are thinking of starting in one particular country in the next quarter of this year. 2008-05-16 New brochure coming This week we finished the design of our new brochure. Next week we expect to receive a test print, and if all is well, we will have it translated and printed in several languages. 2008-05-09 Android This week we started our first experiments with Android. Android is a platform like Microsoft's Windows Mobile, but Android is developed by a group of companies including Google, T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, and Motorola. Android is completely free and open source. It is also complete: it includes for example a navigation programme. As soon as Apple's iPhone becomes officially available in the Benelux, we will perform compatibility tests as well. 2008-05-02 Data copied This week we copied all data from our current system to the new one. Since the new system has a new data structure, the data had to be converted in many ways. Because of this and because of the size of the data, it took almost a week to complete this task. Until the new system takes over the current one, we will make daily incremental copies. 2008-04-25 First online reseller Most of our resellers have stores where they sell Spotmaster. This week we discussed a strategy with our first online reseller, who has one of the most successful Dutch webstores. We discussed not only marketing and sales issues, but technical and service issues as well, like where to build in the YellowSpots. We are very much looking forward to supporting this way of online sales. 2008-04-18 "Noise reduction" Pure GPS data is inaccurate by standard. Many factors cause deviations. It is one of our passions to provide the most accurate data to our customers, and so it is one of our drives to filter the data as perfect as possible to "minimize the noise", so to speak. The new software version that we are testing has some optimized filtering for all kind of situations where GPS data is not accurate. These filters will become a more important part of our unique selling points. 2008-04-11 4ms We are proud that our new system only takes about 4 milliseconds to process an update transaction that comes from a YellowSpot. Each YellowSpot sends its location and other information to the server regularly, which the server has to process and store that data. Since we optimized this vital process, each server can handle up to 10000-s of YellowSpots. In addition, the new system also keeps track of a dozen of statistics that we are going to connect to our automated ticket system in the near future. 2008-04-04 Optimalization of business processes We started to evaluate all our business processes in order to optimize them by integrating them in our business systems. We already automated most of our financial processes, so that we only need 1 administrator per 1000 customers. We experience that optimizing our processes not only has a huge leverage on our growth and profitability, but on our work inspirations as well. 2008-03-28 Test drive of new application This week we put our new application semi-live. This means that the new application handles all transactions simultaneously with the current application, but it is not actually used by customers. After we verified that the new application gives the desired results, we will bring it live. 2008-03-21 YellowSpot with 2 year battery power After some tests, we are launching a YellowSpot with a special battery pack that holds enough power to run the unit for 2 years without recharging. We already have a special type that is powered with solar energy, but this new type will serve some new, interesting, big niche markets. 2008-03-14 Code freeze Today we initiated a code freeze of the new version of our main application. This means that from now on we will only test the software and make small changes where needed. Some key customers will participate in the testing as well. The public release is planned for the end of this month. The last code freeze was exactly one year ago. 2008-03-07 Spotmaster in Norway We have just given the first trainings to the first resellers in Norway. We have also visited the distributor there and made initial agreements with them. We will now follow and support a few pilot projects. 2008-02-29 Finntax sold 1000 YellowSpots This month Dutch reseller Finntax sold its 1000-th YellowSpot. It took Finntax just over 1 year to sell this quantity. Reason enough to celebrate this event with a huge cake. Critical success factors are their professional approach, inspiring environment and focus on the product. We thank Finntax for their continuous support and feedback to improve our products and services, and we will start thinking how to celebrate their next 1000 YellowSpots. 2008-02-22 Software upgrade delayed This year we expect our first database table to exceed 1 billion (1,000,000,000) records. In order to keep the system extremely fast, we redesigned our data warehouse. However, during some distributed computing tests we experienced a database engine problem. Therefore the software upgrade (from version 10 to 11) that was foreseen for this month is delayed to next month. 2008-02-15 YellowSpot with finger print card reader We are the first developers of a finger print card reader for driver identification. This system consists of an inexpensive chip card reader that is connected to a YellowSpot. Every driver has a chip card with integrated finger print reader. The driver puts the creditcard sized chip card into the reader and then puts his/her finger on the card. Within 1 seconds the system knows who the driver is. 2008-02-08 YellowSpot with finger print reader We started the development of a finger print reader connected to our system. This is a convenient and reliable way to identify who is driving a vehicle (or operating any other type of mobile object). Besides this, we have an ID key for driver identification as well. 2008-02-01 Exclusive European Top Reseller Network This week we launched our campaign "Exclusive European Top Reseller Network". This campaign is part of our strategy to build an exclusive international network of top resellers. We developed this campaign with our brand building agency and copy writer in cooperation with our European distributor, who will use this campaign to build a network of the best resellers. 2008-01-25 Arctic Challenge uses Spotmaster massively We provide the track and trace application for the Arctic Challenge Tour 2008 and it seemed to be a good live test for our future grow. We had over 10 times more concurrent users logged in our application than usual, and the systems were able to deal with the load well. We also found that the upcoming newly designed system is far more efficient than the current one, and will provide a strong base for our rapid international extension. 2008-01-18 Arctic Challenge uses Spotmaster The Arctic Challenge Tour 2008 will use our system to track and trace the cars that will participate in this motor sport event. In additional we built an adapted website for the management, the teams and the public. 2008-01-11 Multi-country use To meet international requests, we started to adapt our application for true multi-country use. This operation includes the identification of the user's country (initially based on IP address), the user's language (initially based on browser data), the user's timezone, and other parameters. We will start with these countries/languages: België, Belgique, Belgien, Danmark, Deutschland, France, Luxembourg, Luxemburg, Nederland, Norge, Österreich, Sverige, Suomen and United Kingdom. 2008-01-04 Subscriptions up to 5 years Due to customer's demand, we are going to provide a 4 and 5 year subscription contract besides the current 1, 2 and 3 years. These subscriptions will have an additional monthly discount of 1 euro per unit for a 4 year subscription and 2 euro for a 5 year subscription. The subscription price is 24.95 euro for a 1 year subscription, 19.95 for 2 years, 14.95 for 3 years, 13.95 for 4 years and 12.95 for 5 years. 2007-12-28 New Year's quantity discount Together with our resellers in the Netherlands and Belgium, we offer a New Year's quantity discount to new customers. Customers taking a track-and-trace subscription of over 15 units receive a 5% discount for 3 years. This is 10% over 40 units, 15% over 100 units, 20% over 250 units, and 25% over 500 units. This offer is for a limited time only. 2007-12-21 Interest from Nordic countries We started initial talks with interested distributors in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. This is in line with our goal for international expansion in the current 3rd phase of Spotmaster. We are already talking with an interested partner in Austria, and we are starting sales in Belgium from January 2008. 2007-12-14 New infrastructure We invested in a new infrastructure, that will become operational from January 2008. This infrastructure includes decentralized webservers (in Europe and North America) that are connected on the back-end to a secure cluster. All data updates are sent from a webserver to the secure cluster and synchronized to all webservers. Some advantages are 1) all traffic is balanced between the webservers, 2) if a webserver fails, others will take over the traffic, 3) we can add new webservers when needed. 2007-12-07 Pro-active service We developed and are still testing and fine-tuning a pro-active service system. An automated system continuously monitors all GPS units for unexpected behaviour. This enables us to alert the customer that their SIM card expired or that the power to the unit is disconnected andsoforth. 2007-11-30 Interest from Austria We have been approached by a distributor in Austria that is interested in setting up a Spotmaster sales network. We expect to start negotiations from January 2008. 2007-11-23 YellowSpot with ID keys We started a pilot where we connect electronic ID keys with a YellowSpot. Customers asked us for a solution to be able to track and trace both cars and drivers. Every driver has its own ID key, so the YellowSpot sends this data to the servers as well. Per car we can track more than one key at the same time, so we can track teams and team members as well. 2007-11-16 Spotmaster in Belgium We started to set up a distribution and reseller network in Belgium. We are investigating to set up a Belgian company together with a local partner who already has experience in the field. 2007-11-09 Solar powered YellowSpot on trailer Today we delivered the first YellowSpot on a customer's trailer to track and trace it worldwide. Unique about this installation is that the unit is powered by an internal battery that is charged with sunlight by a few solar cells, so no external power is required. 2007-11-02 Additional YellowSpot from January 2008 From January 2008 we will have 2 different YellowSpots from 2 different suppliers. The first unit is an inexpensive, but robust GPS track and trace unit. The second unit is a more comprehensive unit with lots of additional possibilities, like on-board scripting. We chose a different additional supplier, because of the critical nature of the product. 2007-11-01 Phase 3 started Spotmaster grows according to plan. In the 1st phase we developed the systems and tested it with a reseller and a few customers. In the 2nd phase we built a distribution channel with a dozen resellers and hundreds of customers. We now enter into the 3rd phase with an international network of resellers and a brand new web application, that uses a combination of technologies that is completely unique (some started to call it web 3.0). We will implement the new technologies in the next two months. Like phases 1 and 2, we expect that phase 3 will take one year as well. 2007-05-04 Updates via this website postponed Because of international activities, this page will not be updated via this website in the next months. Important notifications will be sent by email. 2007-04-27 Spotmaster on bicycle to Spain Spotmaster is currently used to track and trace cars, trucks, buses, taxis, boats, shovels, andsoforth. Since today Spotmaster is also used on bicycles by sponsoring a bicycle trip that goes from IJsselstein in the Netherlands to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. The trip can be followed live on the demo website. 2007-04-20 Spotmaster S Spotmaster introduces Spotmaster S, which adds track and trace functionality to standard PDAs. We are currently testing it with the P3300 and P3600 of HTC. Both PDAs have built-in GPS and GPRS, to enable live webbased track and trace. 2007-04-06 Electrolux contracts Spotmaster The service department of Electrolux (Electrolux Home Products Nederland) started to use Spotmaster to manage its fleet of over 80 service vehicles. Besides the standard YellowSpot management, Electrolux uses the route management module as well. In addition Spotmaster developed a tailor-made import module to get the planned routes from the AS/400 system via an external application of Electrolux. 2007-03-30 Commodity, niche and tailor made products Today the second phase of the code cleaning by the operational programming team finished. A few features were improved. First, third parties can access the application server via XML as well. Second, the application server can run locally at the customer's premises. Third, besides the main stream product, it is now very easy to add niche specific functions to the application server. We expect the first major niche version by mid April. Fourth, more and more customers ask for tailor made solutions which is now possible. We expect to finalise a version for the first major customer by the end of next week. 2007-03-23 Connection server Today the Maltese development team set up a new connection server, which manages all connectivity with GPS devices, PDA's, smartphones and other remote devices. The connection server is responsible for 3 things. First it enables push mail and messaging, second the data usage is 4 times less than conventional methods, and third the time between sending the request for data and receiving the actual data is 4 times less than normal. Unique is also that one server can handle up to 65.000 concurrent connections. Today it works easily with 14.000 concurrent connections. 2007-03-23 New features Today the first phase of the code cleaning by the operational programming team finished. In the meantime the strategy team made a list of new features. These include extensive people management, extensive ticketing (Spotmaster's unique manage-by-exception strategy) with SpotMail integration, project-order-job management, and complex route planning. 2007-03-22 New interactive mapping Spotmaster started a new project to offer dynamic, interactive maps instead of static pictures. In addition, Spotmaster's interface experts designed a more intuitive interface, which will be implemented in April. This includes better webpages, better reporting, and all webpages will be available on both PC and PDA. 2007-03-16 Code freeze The development team of Spotmaster entered into a state of code freeze. In this period all source code is analyzed and optimized. The reason for this freeze is to prepare for the next step, the development of Spotmaster XL, including project, order and job management, as well as the development of tailor made solutions for some large accounts. 2007-03-09 Route management Spotmaster adds a new feature to it geo administration system: route management. With this feature customers can live monitor the planned route versus the actual route. For example in one screen, all active routes are shown, including visited stops, stops still to visit, and stops that should have been visited (enabling the customer to take immediate action). Also the tool generates useful management reports for structural operations optimalisation. 2007-03-02 SpotMail, the ultimate push message system Spotmaster introduces SpotMail. SpotMail is an internal message system used by customers and resellers of the Spotmaster system. One important feature is that SpotMail notifies the recipient realtime when he/she is online even on his/her PDA. On request of its resellers Spotmaster is studying the possibility to sell its SpotMail service as a push mail service on its own. 2007-02-23 Spotmaster L delayed in the Netherlands Due to technical issues with Vodafone NL the launch of Spotmaster L will be delayed in the Netherlands until the end of March. Spotmaster L works well in Belgium, the country where it was developed. 2007-02-21 Taxi version Spotmaster installs the first YellowSpot adapted for taxis. This version makes it possible to monitor live where the taxis are and if they are occupied or free. Also the ride reporting tool shows all rides with and without customers. Unique is that the YellowSpot is typically installed within 30 minutes including the connection to the official taximeter. Spotmaster develops other niche versions of its main stream products. 2007-02-15 TomTom integration The PDA software of Spotmaster now communicates with TomTom Navigator. This opens lots of new possibilities. Suppose the driver accepts a rush order, the server of Spotmaster pushes the location to the navigator in the car of the driver, so the driver does not need to manually type the address. Spotmaster will realise the same functionality with Route66 and Alturion. 2007-02-14 New resellers selected Spotmaster started its next stage of expansion of its reseller network. There was a stop to increase the network because the growth of sales was already very high with the current resellers. Spotmaster is now ready to double its sales in 3 months time. 2007-02-09 Development of OEM products and services Spotmaster will offer its services to suppliers of track and trace products and services. Spotmaster focusses primary on its state-of-the-art applications, rather than GPS/GPRS hardware devices. The application engine with its open API will be offered soon. 2007-02-08 HTC P3300 is first Spotmaster Certified device HTC P3300 is the first device that is certified by Spotmaster. The PDA has built-in GPS and GPRS. This enables personal track and trace instead of track and trace of equipment. Spotmaster also enables automated time administration including work status management like work, break, stand-by, off-work, holiday. 2007-02-07 New GPS/GRPS device Spotmaster is finalizing a partnership with another GPS/GPRS supplier. The partnership with this US based company will include production facilities in Hong Kong. The current device will remain. This new device will have more features than the current one. 2007-02-02 Fully automated administration system To keep up with the big growth, Spotmaster is finalizing its fully automated administration system. This online system is for both reseller and customers. Almost all administration, including the complete subscription management, is done online, without the need of any human intervention. 2007-02-01 Developers meeting in Malta In April Spotmaster holds a technology strategy meeting in Malta for developers. The venue is the award winning Hilton Hotel, close to the offices of Spotmaster International. 2007-01-30 SMSCOM delivers powersafe mode feature The supplier of the current device SMSCOM issued an upgrade which includes a powersafe mode to prevent a shortage of battery power of non-used vehicles. 2007-01-25 New intrusion detection system Spotmaster started to install a new intrusion detection system (IDS) for its European data center. This content based solution will enhance the current security handled by firewalls based on TCP/IP. 2007-01-25 GMT Online delivers data center Spotmaster appointed GMT Online to supply internet connectivity and server hosting. Spotmaster will be connected to multiple international GB/s nodes to ensure high quality connectivity. 2007-01-19 Disaster management Spotmaster sets up a technical system in case the current European data center fails because of a disaster. A hot backup will be created in the USA, replicating the European system realtime. This system will be active from April 2007. 2007-01-15 New Swiss telephone number Spotmaster opened a special telephone number for investor related services. Leander Berwers, the investor's contact, can be reached directly at this Swiss telephone number: +41 61 5265256. 2007-01-10 Mission critical system Spotmaster starts to implement its new European mission critical system. This system is designed to provide an uptime of 99.999%. The system inludes the lastest technologies, like clustering, load balancing, out-scaling and hot standby-s. The next step is the setup of a disaster replica outside Europe. 2007-01-08 ING Bank increases long term liabilities Spotmaster and ING Bank agreed to increase the long term liability 3 times. The money is invested in enhanced application development. 2007-01-05 Renewed brand building marketing Spotmaster tightens its relations with brand building specialists APS to further build a stronger brand awareness. 2007-01-03 Development center in Belgium Spotmaster opens a development center in Belgium on 26 February 2007. This center develops also the next generation Spotmaster applications for PDA and smartphones. 2007-01-02 Investor related information here From 1st January 2007 Spotmaster publishes investor related information on this webpage. The updates are on a weekly basis.