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The reconstituted brand name benefits from the focus of previous owners. Under the Thales umbrella, the company expanded its market in Europe and gained GNSS expertise with the focus on the Galileo project. The Magellan ownership provided expertise in developing light-weight mobile handheld products. Now as Ashtech the company combines both high-precision and handheld solutions for both the GIS and survey professionals.

A recent discussion with Francois Erceau, vice president and general manager, offered insights into the company's products and prospects in Asia. "We have a big number of projects in India that apply to various surveying and mapping efforts. China is also impressive, where we are making inroads selling products, but also on the OEM front where customers are integrating our technology and benefiting from it by designing their own solutions. In Australia we have just signed a new master distributor by the name of Cody Corporation, and we have very big plans for that region," said Erceau.

The company sees good signs of recovery as compared to 2010, specifically in the surveying sector where it is privately-driven and largely development-centric. The GIS market has been more steady given its strong reliance on public money, but stands to grow at a slower rate according to Ashtech.

While Ashtech offers a range of accuracy in their products, Erceau sees precision as an addictive need. While many users may start at the lower end of the accuracy spectrum with handheld and even consumer-grade devices, with more use and exposure to greater precision, users tend to adopt more professional technologies with greater use.

The interest in greater accuracy solutions is driven largely by easier means to achieve precision, whether that's better post processing or the use of RTK systems. The complexity of high-precision surveying goes away with RTK rover technologies that allow users to get centimeter accuracy without the need for multiple reference points.

With various mobile options in their portfolio, Ashtech sees the growing interest in wireless network connectivity as a strong suit. The company will include connectivity from the office to the field and back in all of their products.

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