The Leica GMX902 GG is a highperformance GPS + GLONASS receiver, specially developed to monitor sensitive structures such as bridges, mines or high rise buildings and crucial topographies such as land slides or volcanoes. Leica has also announced a major advance in the capabilities of pulsed (or “time-of-fl ight”) laser scanners for as-built and topographic surveys. The maximum speed for ‘ScanStation 2’ is 50,000 points/second, more than 10-times that of its ScanStation predecessor (4,000 points/second) and the highest in the industry for pulsed scanners. www.leica-geosystems.com

Trimble has announced the introduction of the Trimble® SPS730 and SPS930 Universal Total Stations for heavy and highway construction with features like Servo, Autolock, Robotic, DR Refl ectorless and ATS modes of operation. Trimble has also introduced Integrity Manager™ software for monitoring the dynamics of GNSS infrastructure networks. In a GNSS network, movement of a reference antenna due to various reasons like tectonics, weather or simple human error results in reduced data integrity. With this software, network operators can detect movement and whether action is needed. www.trimble.com.

Topcon Corporation, Japan has acquired certain assets of Javad Navigation Systems, Inc. (JNS), which was created as part of the July 2000 agreements between Topcon and Dr. Javad Ashjaee. www.topcon.co.jp

Rolta India acquires Orion Technology, a Canadian software and integration company. It expects to generate around $100 million over the next three to fi ve years by integrating the acquired technologies. www.business-standard.com

Tele Atlas has signed an agreement with BAKOSURTANAL, Indonesian mapping organisation, to incorporate digital maps within its existing Indonesia database by September 2007. The Indonesia map is part of a virtually seamless SoutheastAsia map solution from Tele Atlas that includes extensive coverage of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. www.teleatlas.com

TomTom NV shall buy Tele Atlas NV for 1.9 billion euros by paying 21.25 euros per, a 28 per cent premium to the company's closing price of 16.55 euros.

DigitalGlobe has announced the addition of Geoimage Pty Ltd, Australia to its network of distribution partners. Geoimage will resell DigitalGlobe’s products throughout Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the islands of the South West Pacifi c. http://media.digitalglobe.com/

Optech lidar technology shall be launched toward Mars aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. Canada is playing an important role in this mission by contributing a meteorological station to track the weather and climate on Mars. The main sensor of the meteorological station is a lidar instrument designed by Optech and built in collaboration with MDA Space Missions, the Canadian Space Agency. www.optech.ca

SOCET GXP v2.3, image analysis and mapping software integrates with Google Earth and the ESRI geodatabase thus enabling analysts to evaluate and share intelligence data. It interacts with Google Earth in real time, 3D colour visualization and gives geospatial context to objects
of interest. www.baesystems.com

Sokkia Japan has released the NET1 automated 3D station, offering enhanced measurement effi ciency for industrial, construction and deformation monitoring applications. It has the latest total station technologies - auto-pointing, auto-tracking, refl ectorless measurement and wireless control to greatly increase effi ciency in a wide range of applications. www.sokkia.co.jp

Autodesk, Inc. has launched Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise 2008 and Autodesk Topobase 2008, two geospatial softwares that provide organizations with a platform to share location, design and enterprise information across departments. www.pressreleases.autodesk.com

Mr Niels Appel has been appointed Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Contex. He will be responsible for the development and implementation of Contex's global sales and marketing strategies and programs. Coordinates speaks to Mr Appel on Context strategy for Asia-Pac region.

How does Contex plan to capitalise on the growth of geospatial technologies?

The GIS/Mapping/Remote Sensing market is a core market for Contex. The customer needs high quality scanning with extreme accuracy; we are the market leader in that segment. Since Contex began to produce scanners in 1989, we have worked with a “never compromise on scanning quality" strategy that fi ts perfectly into a the GIS/Mapping/Remote Sensing market. In Asia-Pac we intend to continue to invest in resources and marketing; expand the number and breath of our partners and fi nally, are evaluating the current product portfolio .

Any new product you anticipate for the GIS/Mapping segment?

We will continue to develop products and solutions for the GIS/Mapping/ Remote Sensing market in order to maintain our position. 2008 will be another landmark year for Contex.

How do you estimate the potential of your product in the Asia-Pac region?

Asia-Pac region is a big investment area for us due to the growing economy and an increasing need to digitize millions of maps. Our product portfolio fi ts very well with the needs of the Asia- Pac region. While some customers are willing to comprise quality in order to get a larger volume of solutions for the same price, this trend is diminishing as a low quality scan results in more manual work. This becomes signifi cant with the increasing labour costs in the region.

What is the signifi cance of the Contex buy out by Ratos in your overall business?

We are very happy with our new owner Ratos for a number of reasons. Ratos has seen the potential both in Contex as a company and also in the market we are in. Our plan is to grow both organically and also by acquisitions. So I do not foresee any signifi cant changes in the way we operate. I see a signifi cant opportunity for growth with Ratos. Contex is a very healthy company – we are fi nancially in very good shape, we have the strongest product portfolio in the market and we have a very robust organization. So with Ratos as a new owner, we have all that is needed for accelerating our growth.