Google Maps and GoMobileIQ for Vehicle Routing

Things are Changing

At one time vehicle routing software was only available through software that was expensive, and needed to be installed on the purchasing company’s computers. Not anymore. Sophisticated web enabled routing software is now available for a monthly fee, and with less feature rich routing available for free from Google Maps. In our post entitled Lets Web Enable Supply Chain, we made the point supply chain software should increasingly change to a web based model. http://supplychaininnovation.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/web-enable-supply-chain/

There are all sorts of reasons for this, not the least of which being, that web based software can be easily and inexpensively tested, without the necessity for the normal corporate software sales process. We find this process immensely wasteful and actually reduces the quality of software because less transparent software is more difficult to properly compare. When software is not web enabled, it means consultants need to come to the client site and work in an unfamiliar environment where they are less efficient. When software is offered over the web as a service, the entire situation is far more efficient and better results occur.

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What Is Web Enabled?

We wanted to be sure to define what we mean by the term “web enabled.” This is because many marketing representatives will declare their software is web enabled, however, our definition is a bit different. When we say web enabled we mean the following:

• The interface meets high standards of design and is extremely usable, and that it actually takes advantage of HTML, Java or even Flash. Arena Solutions and MCA make the grade, SAP Portals, does not — even though it is written in HTML.
• The company offers their software as a service, and furthermore, they actually support this model with resources.
• The company offers a demo system either directly through their website (the most preferable) or by request through an account rep.

Less Incentive to Improve

Vendors are putting off improving their web interfaces because those making the purchasing decisions are often not aware that there are different degrees of web enablement. Also, too often software vendors present the interface during a demo with specialized pre-sales consultants who spend many hours mastering the interface. This is not evidence of a well designed or usable interfaces. Excellent interfaces allow beginners to quickly pick up software, and expose the underlying logic of the program to users. Executives who do not give sufficient emphasis to the interface will find they have problems with and more expensive implementations.

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Google Maps

To start off this analysis we wanted to discuss a new feature we discovered in Google Maps. First because it is simply interesting that you can get this from a free service, and secondly, because the more sophisticated solution we review after it also is based upon, Google Maps.

Adding a Location to a Route

In the example below, we have created a route between two locations (A and B in green letters below). We thought that Google Maps required addresses, but in fact, you can enter in the name of business and Google Maps will find the closest one to the route you have currently planned. Below, Google Maps has found several 24 Hour Fitness locations that are close to 762 San Antonio Rd in Mountain View California.

However, if we drag the location above the first location, notice it changes where it searches for 24 Hour Fitness locations. It now finds locations close to the starting point of the route.

Here you can see the two 24 Hour Fitness locations presented on the map as well.

Now that we have a gym selected, we can add another business, and it will do the same thing, finding Trader Joe’s locations close to the 24 Hour Fitness.

Using just Google Maps, we have route planned our personal itinerary. Its hard to conceive that just a few years ago, this would have required expensive routing software and was certainly not available on the web. Again, this is all provided for free by Google. Is there another software company that has given as much to society as Google? As popular as they are, their contribution is actually under-appreciated. When compared to software companies like Microsoft of Oracle, that give nothing back and is mostly about locking its customers in….and then charging them as much as possible, Google seems like it is from another planet. We found an article from O’Reilly, that may help explain why, which we have added and excerpt of at the end of this post.

GoMobileIQ

While Google Maps is great for personal use, and could probably plan simple routes just find. There is a lot of functionality it does not have, and it does not consider splitting locations between different trucks. One vendor which impressed us is GoMobileIQ. A few of reasons we like them is:

1. They are truly web enabled
2. They leverage Google Maps.

This is done using the Google Maps API which you can read about here.

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/

It is Google’s attempt to encourage other software companies to use its maps as a platform.

This is good for customers of GoMobileIQ because Google Maps will continue to develop, so by building HeadLight (this is the name of the product made by GoMobileIQ) to interact with Google Maps, HeadLight will continue to gain from Google Map’s development. Furthermore, GoMobileIQ does not have to spend valuable development resources on making or maintaining the mapping software. This is one reason GoMobileIQ can offer its software at such a low price. Furthermore, vendors that do not connect to the Google Maps API are at a competitive disadvantage against a company like GoMobileIQ, because they have the development overhead that GoMobileIQ does not. (applications that work together in this way are also called mashups)

Screen Shots

The screen shot below shows how you can hover over any location, and read information about it. The different color locations represent different drivers. These drivers are assigned locations by HeadLight. Locations can be uploaded with a file, or they can be added manually.

This next view shows a street level picture, provided of course by Google Maps (street level view was introduced a while ago, but as Google adds more pictures, the feature becomes more complete and more usable.

Headlight Conclusion

HeadLight appears to have a very logical interface, and you can actually sign up for a demo online. The price is quite good, meaning even the smallest companies can easily afford a subscription to it. To try it out for yourself, head to http://www.gomobileiq.com It is both interesting as routing software, but also as an example of how to make a commercial application as easy to use and sign up for as a consumer application.

Addendum: Why Google Acts So Differently

Netscape framed “the web as platform” in terms of the old software paradigm: their flagship product was the web browser, a desktop application, and their strategy was to use their dominance in the browser market to establish a market for high-priced server products. Control over standards for displaying content and applications in the browser would, in theory, give Netscape the kind of market power enjoyed by Microsoft in the PC market. Much like the “horseless carriage” framed the automobile as an extension of the familiar, Netscape promoted a “webtop” to replace the desktop, and planned to populate that webtop with information updates and applets pushed to the webtop by information providers who would purchase Netscape servers.

In the end, both web browsers and web servers turned out to be commodities, and value moved “up the stack” to services delivered over the web platform.

Google, by contrast, began its life as a native web application, never sold or packaged, but delivered as a service, with customers paying, directly or indirectly, for the use of that service. None of the trappings of the old software industry are present. No scheduled software releases, just continuous improvement. No licensing or sale, just usage. No porting to different platforms so that customers can run the software on their own equipment, just a massively scalable collection of commodity PCs running open source operating systems plus homegrown applications and utilities that no one outside the company ever gets to see.

Netscape framed “the web as platform” in terms of the old software paradigm: their flagship product was the web browser, a desktop application, and their strategy was to use their dominance in the browser market to establish a market for high-priced server products. Control over standards for displaying content and applications in the browser would, in theory, give Netscape the kind of market power enjoyed by Microsoft in the PC market. Much like the “horseless carriage” framed the automobile as an extension of the familiar, Netscape promoted a “webtop” to replace the desktop, and planned to populate that webtop with information updates and applets pushed to the webtop by information providers who would purchase Netscape servers.
In the end, both web browsers and web servers turned out to be commodities, and value moved “up the stack” to services delivered over the web platform.
Google, by contrast, began its life as a native web application, never sold or packaged, but delivered as a service, with customers paying, directly or indirectly, for the use of that service. None of the trappings of the old software industry are present. No scheduled software releases, just continuous improvement. No licensing or sale, just usage. No porting to different platforms so that customers can run the software on their own equipment, just a massively scalable collection of commodity PCs running open source operating systems plus homegrown applications and utilities that no one outside the company ever gets to see.” -http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html