Gallery: SAP, Google put business on the map
SAP and Google are expanding their partnership to take large data sets and integrate them into Google Maps, Earth, Docs and other products.
Advances in location and mobile technology are boosting the potential of augmented reality applications, meaning they are no longer the preserve of consumer-focused developers, according to enterprise software specialist SAP.
The company is developing an enterprise application for the iPhone and iPad, known currently as the Augmented Explorer Prototype. The idea is that the software will allow businesses to call up corporate data while out in the field and to map this data to what they are seeing. For example, a car salesman could point a handset at a vehicle on a showroom forecourt to find out how many the company has in stock.
In a blog post on the prototype, Timo Elliott, senior director of strategic marketing at SAP, noted that location technology has become refined enough to allow people to use their handset as a pointing device for drilling down into data.
Development of the augmented reality app is in "beta of an alpha phase", according to Elliott. However, he said that the software should be available on the iPhone app store within the next two months at the latest.
Caption by: Ben Woods
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