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A small Burnaby, B.C.-based company appears to be well-positioned to take advantage of the burgeoning wireless data market.
EDispatch.com Wireless Data Inc. makes Internet-based wireless dispatch software. The 29-employee company began life in 1991 as Instep Mobile Communications Inc., a provider of conventional mobile communications systems for taxis and couriers.
Back then, it sold a system of computer hardware, software and communications devices that used private and public radio networks to dispatch taxis and couriers. The company was fairly successful, selling its system throughout the North America, as well as to other parts of the world.
But in 1997, company chairman Peter Bradshaw decided the firm should concentrate on developing products that could take advantage of the Internet boom. The company morphed into a software firm devoted to developing, marketing and licensing Internet appliance software for the mobile workforce market. Its first product, eDispatch, is a wireless dispatch software solution that uses the Internet and wireless handheld devices to deploy and exchange information with a mobile workforce.
"The idea was to take the essence of [the company's] expertise, which was call-taking and dispatching, and take out the words 'taxi' and 'couriers' and make it more applicable to more companies," says eDispatch.com president Brian Ellis.
Companies in industries as varied as health care, transportation, utilities, security and surveillance businesses -- virtually any enterprise where there is a need to manage a mobile workforce in real time through various handheld devices -- could make use of eDispatch.com's software application.
And the company's transformation could not have been timed any better. Until recently, a dispatching system using eDispatch.com's technology would not have gained mass appeal, since most voice-centric networks were not data-enabled. With...