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Gainspan Corporation and Ekahau, Inc. Announce a Strategic Partnership to Create the Most Power Efficient, Location Aware Wi-Fi Sensor Network
LOS GATOS, California, October 14 /PRNewswire/ -- - Ultra Low Power, Wi-Fi Sensor Networks Become Location Aware Through the Addition of Ekahau's Location Protocol to the Gainspan Embedded Software GainSpan Corporation, a leading provider of embedded Wi-Fi single-chip solutions, and Ekahau, Inc., a leading provider of Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) announced a strategic agreement. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081014/324879-a ) (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081014/324879-b ) Under the agreement, GainSpan has integrated Ekahau Location Protocol (ELP) into the GainSpan Embedded Software that runs on GainSpan GS1010 ultra low power SOC (System-On-a-Chip). This will allow GS1010-based Wi-Fi sensor nodes and location tags to work with Ekahau Positioning Engine (EPE). As a part of the agreement, Ekahau will license the EPE and Ekahau Vision application to GainSpan customers allowing them to add location-awareness to their applications. GainSpan and Ekahau have already started actively marketing the combined solution to OEMs and channel partners worldwide. Mr. Woochul Shin, Director of Solutions Marketing, VSS Business Team at Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., commented: "Technology offered through this partnership provides an extremely appealing solution. Our team is actively designing product offerings based upon the combined solution and we hope to release products to the market within next several months." "Ekahau Real Time Location System (RTLS) is targeted at providing location awareness in environments where technologies such as GPS do not perform adequately, unfortunately in the asset and people tagging industry these environments are all too common," highlighted Vijay Parmar, President & CEO of GainSpan Corporation. "Ekahau RTLS technology and GainSpan's low power Wi-Fi SoC provide a reliable mechanism for people and asset tracking even in these environments." "The robustness of tags used in the location-tracking market is of prime concern to our customers," said Mr Antti Korhonen, President and CEO of Ekahau Inc., "With our partnership with GainSpan and their ultra low power Wi-Fi based technology, we can provide solutions that can operate reliably for more than 5 years in the field all while being powered from only small power sources such as a single AA battery." GainSpan Embedded Software leverages the global acceptance of Wi-Fi and 802.11b/g networks to provide the communication backbone for their sensor networks. In environments where such networks don't exist, infrastructure can be installed at a fraction of the cost of proprietary solutions and with standard hardware easily available. Ekahau RTLS works with standard 802.11 infrastructures which allow deployments on top of any Wi-Fi wireless infrastructure. This makes deployment on top of existing infrastructures straight forward and gives flexibility to greenfield deployments. About GainSpan Corporation GainSpan is an embedded Wi-Fi semiconductor company providing a low power single-chip solution. Whether companies are developing sensor networks or entering new markets enabled by low-power Wi-Fi, GainSpan provides the most cost-effective, energy-efficient approach. Founded from within Intel in 2006, GainSpan is the first company to develop a complete system-on-a-chip that runs reliably for up to 10 years on a single AA battery. For more information, visit http://www.GainSpan.com. About Ekahau Inc. Ekahau Inc. is the industry leader in providing Wi-Fi-based RTLS solutions. Ekahau's customers, including several Fortune 500 companies worldwide, are realizing the benefits of Wi-Fi based location services and innovative Wi-Fi network planning and optimization tools. Ekahau's solutions are being used in more than 150 hospitals around the world, as well as by manufacturers, mining/oil/gas companies, government agencies and the military. Ekahau partners include wireless software developers, leading system integrators and international OEM partners, who develop and market wireless enterprise applications. Ekahau is a U.S. based corporation, with offices in Saratoga, Calif.; Reston, Va.; Helsinki, Finland; and Hong Kong, China. For more information about Ekahau, please visit at http://www.ekahau.com. (c) Copyright 2006, Ekahau, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
