GPS BN: Your biggest customers are in the defense and intelligence sector, so how important is the market of location-based services for DigitalGlobe?
JS: LBS are one of the four primary growth market we have identified. We believe the opportunity is significant. Ultimately I think satellite imagery could be offered wherever there is a vector map.

GPS BN: Location-based services can be on PC, cell phone or other types of mobile equipment, so where do you think will be the biggest opportunity?
JS: I wish I could know. I mean there are opportunities in all these markets, it is difficult to know today which one will be the biggest: cell phone is obvious, but PC is also growing pretty fast: a recent report estimated that 440 million unique monthly visitors would access maps on a PC next year. There is also a strong demand for imagery in mobile devices for purposes such as outdoor, marine, or even golf courses.

GPS BN: What are you biggest customers in the LBS market today?
JS: There is Nokia, Microsoft, Google, NAVTEQ, Tele Atlas and Garmin. There are not only our biggest customers, but also companies which are shaping this market.

GPS BN: What is your commercial strategy on the LBS market?
JS: Our focus is to go direct. There is a clear shift in that market. Initially our customers have been the traditional professional GIS users so we worked through resellers who had direct contact with these companies. Now for customers using our imagery in consumer products our target is to go direct. We would like to replicate the relationship we have with the US government. To put in place this direct sale strategy in the LBS market we are currently building a team and we have hired Rafay Khan, a former NAVTEQ executive who is leading this initiative as senior vice president of international sales.

GPS BN: As you have mentioned, next month you will be launching a new satellite, WorldView 2, what kind of competitive advantage do you expect from it?
JS: As I have mentioned there is the coverage: WorldView 2 will be capable of collecting up to 975,000 square kilometers [376,000 square miles] per day, doubling our collection capacity and enabling us to offer an annual update of the world. But there is also the potential for revisit, with a third satellite we will be able to do in day revisit.

In addition to that, WorldView 2 is the first 8-band multispectral satellite to be commercially available, which means we will deliver true color pictures. Obviously for consumer applications it will improve the beauty of the picture we provide, but this technology also offers a big advantage for feature recognition. It will help accelerate the development of our derivative products.

For example true color picture is very important in identifying roads and highways. This is what we do for NAVTEQ in Bangladesh. For rural roads with this new satellite it is going to be much easier to separate the road from the bush around it. Another advantage is for example to be able to identify more clearly underwater elements like rocks on a coastline.

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