Mapquest founder named Webraska board chair

MAISONS-LAFFITTE, France -- Barry Glick, the founder and former CEO of Mapquest, has been named chairman of the board of directors of Webraska, a worldwide provider of location-based services (LBS) and telematics applications and enabling platforms. 

"To accompany our fast growth, we have been looking to strengthen our board of directors and advisory board to recruit leaders in the telecom, automotive and geospatial industries," said Jean-Michel Durocher, founder and CEO of Webraska.

"This also clearly demonstrates our commitment to conquering the North American market, where wireless penetration is now nearing 50%", Durocher said. "We expect to win several new North American customers in 2002 and help them replicate the success of Webraska's customers in Europe." 

Webraska builds the SmartZone LBS middleware platforms, which the company describes as "the killer environment for building and deploying high-usage, context-sharing, revenue generating LBS applications." Webraska also offers high revenue generating LBS applications such as Buddy Finder, Maps & Directions, Traffic information, and what is the nearest' Yellow Page Finder services, as well as the award winning and patented IbDN® wireless car navigation solution.

Washington and Paris

As full-time chairman, Glick will be based in Washington, but will travel regularly to Webraska's headquarters in Paris and Saratoga, California. Durocher said Glick will contribute to development of Webraska's strategy, drawing on over 20 years of industry experience. He will also play an active role in developing and strengthening strategic partnerships. 

"Webraska has achieved powerhouse status in the LBS market, with 15 telecom operator deployments around the world and EUR19 million in customer orders in the last 12 months," Glick said. "I am excited at the opportunity to join the number one player in the wireless location industry, a market which is set to take off in 2003."

Barry was the Founder, Chairman and CEO of GeoSystems Global Corp. which in 1999 was renamed MapQuest.com Inc. Barry founded the company in 1994 by leading its spinout from RR Donnelley and served as its CEO and later also as its Chairman. He successfully raised two major rounds of venture capital funding (1994 and 1997), oversaw the launch of MapQuest.com (1996), the first and most successful consumer and business-to-business mapping and routing web site, growing the business to $35 million in revenue and 350 employees.

Geo-spatial software

In addition to the MapQuest.com service, GeoSystems' business also included an industry-leading geo-spatial business software and solutions division. Major customers included AAA, American Airlines, United Airlines, Best Western, National Geographic, Ameritech, Exxon, Fed Ex, among others.

"I must say that I join a very high level board," Glick said, "which counts among its members the founders of Vicinity, Airflash and Webraska, as well as senior industry experts from APAX, Argo, Infineon, Telcordia-SAIC, Philips, Navtech and SignalSoft." 

MapQuest went public in April 1999 with a market capitalization of approximately $600 million. In December 1999, an agreement was reached to sell MapQuest to AOL for a stock deal worth approximately $1.1 billion at the time. The sale to AOL closed in June, 2000. 

Since his departure from the company, Glick has remained active in the location-based information business, having worked with companies such as Navigation Technologies Inc., Litton Industries, Fourwinds Technology Inc, GeoCodex LLC and others. 

From 1990 to 1994, Glick was the founder and president of Donnelley Geographic Systems, the business unit of RR Donnelley & Sons Company that was spun off to create GeoSystems. 

Previously, he was the founder and president of Spatial Data Sciences, Inc. Early in his career, Barry was a senior project manager and product manager for a division of Equifax Inc and for PAR Technology Corp. and General Software Corp.Barry has a PhD in Geography from the State University of NY (Buffalo) where he specialized in applied spatial analysis and modeling and a master's degree in Policy Planning and Regional Analysis from Cornell University. 

Durocher's position as CEO of Webraska is unchanged. Webraska will call a shareholders' meeting during the summer to formally approve this nomination.

Merger of Webraska and Airflash

Webraska, recently merged with Airflash Inc., provides the advanced software solutions required to develop, integrate and deploy location-based and telematics services. Webraska's carrier-grade offering includes the SmartZone Geospatial Platform(TM), the SmartZone(TM) LBS Application Platform, the patented and award-winning car navigation solution, IbDN Lite, and over 20 other ready-to-deploy market-proven applications such as Buddy Finder and m-Vite. 

Webraska has headquarters in Silicon Valley and in France, and offices around the world. The company currently powers the LBS and telematics offering of service providers in four continents, including Shell Mobile, E-Plus, Pacific Access, Orange, Telecom Italia Mobile, and Viag Interkom, and has partnerships with leading technology providers including Borg, Ericsson, IBM, Nortel and Openwave.