Announcing the appointment, Seeker Wireless CEO, Dr. Chris Drane commented that Grill’s appointment comes at a time of growth for Seeker Wireless as they move towards providing commercial Location Based Services into Australia.

“Seeker Wireless have developed capabilities that use existing GSM, CDMA and 3G handsets to enable the location of a mobile subscriber to be made available as an opt-in, permission based service to help drive the adoption of mobile marketing and mobile content offerings”, said Dr. Drane.

Grill was previously General Manager of LegionONE, a leader in the provision of SMS services to corporates, and has also held senior positions with Telstra and Optus and knows the mobile marketing space well.  “With SMS barcodes, and other technologies now in the market, Location Based Services are the next logical step for mobile marketers” said Grill.

“The possibilities for LBS are endless. Everything from locating the whereabouts of a child, through to rendering assistance for roadside service or ordering a taxi can be facilitated when the location of a mobile user is made available to the company supplying the service”, he said.

“Key to the adoption of LBS services in Australia by Seeker Wireless is the use of an ‘opt-in’ model where a mobile phone user’s location is only made available with the user’s consent.  This is easily achieved by sending an SMS, or updating the user’s website profile” says Grill.

“The Seeker Wireless difference is that our solutions will work with existing handsets, and don’t rely on GPS type systems.  Only a fraction of handsets in Australia are “GPS ready”, and currently no operator is utilising the GPS capabilities of these handsets, which require the user to be outdoors and in view of overhead satellites.  The Seeker Wireless solution uses existing phone networks and handsets to provide reliable location information”, said Grill.

Location based services in the UK and South Africa have enjoyed healthy revenue growth and more services are currently under development.  Seeker Wireless is currently in discussions with a leading LBS operator to bring a range of location based services to Australia.

Seeker Wireless is also pioneering the development of mobile location technologies that greatly improve the accuracy of location information currently available from the mobile operators – making location based services a more viable option for wireless operators and marketers than ever before.

“Mobile marketers have been trying for some time now to get the formula right for marketing to mobile phones.  With the introduction of Seeker Wireless Location Based Services, mobile marketing becomes more cost effective” said Grill. “Knowing where a user is, combined with their permission to receive targeted marketing information or offers will be a real win-win for marketers and consumers alike”, predicts Grill.

Seeker Wireless is currently in discussions with local operators about providing location based services to Australian mobile phone users.