by Craig Bachmann

• Added January 21, 2010

The CES show in Las Vegas is clearly one of the most intense gatherings of technology, businesses, and users in any industry. Over 100,000 folks attended sessions, walked the miles of show floor, and heard the latest in technology for the consumer market. We have noted many times that it appears that the consumer market is driving innovation back into the enterprise. While we don’t expect 3D TV to invade the enterprise real soon (maybe the glasses will be an issue), but 3D mapping may well be part of an enterprise’s LBx strategy.

Navteq presented LIDAR-based 3D Street Mapping as part of an ambitious project to create “ultra-detailed, street level representations”. How this will be used is open to innovation, but it is obvious location intelligence is driven to the street level at this point.

Everyday, consumers are accessing maps to get directions. Recent reports indicate that the number of turn-by-turn (TBT) navigation users surpassed key milestones for the United States and Europe in 2009 by reaching the 50 million and 75 million mark respectively. Businesses that don’t leverage location with their customers are risking a key connection for communicating value, differentiation, and obviously where to find a product and/or service.

At CES, the presence of connected devices was literally “everywhere”. It was clear that not only the devices being presented could be connected - entertainment devices (formerly known as “TV’s”) , in-car navigation, new mobility devices - but the audience was “realtime” connected in communicating what they saw at the show. In fact, at the Nokia presentation the audience was asked to “leave your phones ON” during the presentation. This presentation described how Nokia approaches the emerging markets of the world and how they invest in understanding the location-based conditions that may bring a unique perspective into how phones/mobile devices can be used in each market.

CES reinforced the need for enterprise LBx strategies –internal, external, to and with the customer!