Aruba Networks Maps Out New Indoor Location-Based Services with Acquisition of Meridian
Press Release:
“Indoor GPS” Platform Will Offer Wayfinding and Context-Aware Advertising and Marketing for Public-Facing Enterprises
Sunnyvale, CA – May 16, 2013 – Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN), a leading provider of next-generation network access solutions for the mobile enterprise, today announced the acquisition of privately-held Meridian Apps, Inc. (“Meridian”). With this acquisition, Aruba Networks enables new location-based services by combining its unique, network-based contextual information about users, devices and applications with Meridian’s Wi-Fi based wayfinding solution for smartphones and tablets.
The Meridian enterprise software platform is targeted at public-facing enterprises, including casinos, hospitals, malls, stores, transport hubs, convention centers, museums and campuses, to help customers navigate these large, indoor facilities. Enterprises use the platform to create custom-branded mobile applications to provide turn-by-turn directions, highlight points of interests along the way, deliver context-awareness advertising and offer detailed analytics about users’ travel patterns and preferences.
“GPS-based wayfinding solutions are extraordinarily popular, but they don’t work well indoors,” said Keerti Melkote, founder and Chief Technology Officer at Aruba Networks. “We intend to address that gap by creating ‘indoor GPS’ using Aruba’s Wi-Fi infrastructure and Meridian’s wayfinding platform. The addition of Meridian will enable enterprises to tap into a wealth of network-driven information so that they can better engage their customers with more personalized services. This is a clear opportunity for Wi-Fi to become not only an enabling platform for BYOD, but now across industries, a revenue-producing, customer engagement platform for the business.”
To learn more about Meridian’s platform, visit www.meridianapps.com.
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