Verayu India

BANGALORE: A son's desire to ensure a good night's sleep for his father has inspired the creation of a new technology that competes with the Global Positioning System that uses a constellation of satellites to pinpoint location. Code-named Verayu, a corruption of 'where are you', it can tell the location of a mobile phone based on its distance from the nearest cell phone tower.

Sriram Kannan, a computer scientist who studied at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, built the technology as a way to ensure that his father's phone would automatically send him a text message as the train he was on neared the station. "He didn't need to stay awake to let me know what time he would reach" said the 36-year-old, who has since built a new business around this technology. Kannan's business, which has been around for less than a year, is like nothing else that has been done before. Users say his technology stands out for its ease of use, affordability and its ability to offer a range of applications.

Since July last year, when his startup Nivaata opened, nearly ten clients, including multinational companies, have signed up. As a mobile application Verayu has been installed on the central server of a global business process outsourcing firm. Employees who use the cab service provided by the company and driver of the cab can find out each other's location using Verayu. The system can also be programmed to send out text message alerts to families of employees about their location.

Location-based applications are set to be the biggest slice of business for the start-up as the global market for such services is expected to cross $10 billion in 2015, up from almost $3 billion in 2010, according to data from Pyramid Research.

Nivaata is working with companies in Bangalore, Delhi-NCR and Mumbai, charging a maximum of 450 monthly for every device. In contrast, for a basic GPS-based system, there is an average installation cost of 10,000 plus monthly charges of up to 700 per device, said Kannan..