Delivered on June 23, 2025
Linkit Maps - Share outdoor location information and communicate with your team by ACCESS
Kaoru Komatsuda (Head of Service Development, IoT Development Headquarters)
Maki Yoshida (Customer Success Manager, Linkit)
Affiliation and position information is as of the time of distribution
We welcomed Mr. Komatsuda and Mr. Yoshida from Access Co., Ltd. as guests and dug deeper into the location information service "Linkit Maps" that the company provides. Access Co., Ltd. is a software development company founded in 1984, and has developed its business mainly around network software for embedded products. It has provided browsers for a variety of devices, including mobile phones, TVs, game consoles, and car navigation systems. In recent years, it has also focused on the IoT field, and is particularly focused on providing services that combine location information and communication.
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Access's history and its expansion into the IoT business
Since its founding, Access Co., Ltd. has built a track record in the development of embedded software for consumers, mainly home appliances. The strategy of starting in a niche market and aiming to be the top in a field with few competitors has been successful, laying the foundation for the company today.
The company began to seriously engage in the IoT business in the 2010s. Since the company had been working on technology to connect devices to the Internet for some time, it had been cultivating the underlying technology before the concept of IoT became widespread. After the emergence of the cloud and smartphones and the connection between devices and the cloud became known as IoT, the company has been making its presence felt in this field by leveraging its many years of experience.
"Linkit Maps" enables real-time understanding and communication of the field
Linkit Maps is a service that allows you to understand and share the location and situation of field workers in real time. Using the GPS of your smartphone or a dedicated GPS tracker, you can centrally manage the current location of the field on a map. In addition, it also has a chat function, which enables smooth communication based on location information.
・Major cases of implementation
Infrastructure maintenance companies: Used to improve efficiency of regular inspections and maintenance work, and for safety management.
Transportation and delivery operations: Real-time understanding of delivery status and route optimization.
Media: Sharing of on-site status and ensuring safety.
・Purpose of implementation
The main purpose is safety management and work efficiency. In addition to ensuring the safety of workers in disasters and dangerous sites, sharing the current location of staff working on-site in daily work also enables efficient work assignment.
・Consideration for privacy
We also take employee privacy into consideration, and have a function that automatically sets location information on and off. This allows you to operate so that location information is shared only during work hours and not shared during private time. It is used based on the individual employee's consent, and the company cannot force location information to be turned on.
Strengths and future prospects of "Linkit Maps"
・Competitive advantage
The greatest strength of Linkit Maps is that it integrates communication and location information. Not only can you check location information, but you can also collaborate through chat based on that information to smoothly carry out your work. Another feature is the "Taspot" function, which allows hundreds of thousands of pieces of information to be registered and aggregated on a map. This allows companies to smoothly manage the information they need, such as plotting inspected locations, on a map.
・Reasonable pricing
The affordable price of 550 yen (tax included) per ID per month is also one of its strengths. It can be introduced with a minimum of 10 IDs, and it also includes a chat function, making it an easy service to introduce for companies with many field workers.
Prospects for the future
In the future, we plan to develop more services in addition to location information and communication to support field work efficiency. In addition, we aim to further improve work efficiency by analyzing accumulated data with AI and feeding the results back to customers. We also offer options such as weather information, and can customize it to suit the needs of each company.
Linkit Maps will continue to evolve as a powerful tool that contributes to improving the safety and efficiency of field work.
◾️Summary
Access Co., Ltd.'s "Linkit Maps" is a groundbreaking service that shares the location information of field workers in real time and enables smooth communication based on that information. Through the smartphone app, it balances safety management and work efficiency, and is used in a variety of industries such as infrastructure maintenance, transportation, and news.
In particular, the integration of location information and chat functions, and the "Taspot" function that can aggregate and manage hundreds of thousands of pieces of information on a map are major differentiating factors from other companies' services. In addition, the reasonable price of 550 yen (tax included) per month is also a point that makes it easy for many companies to introduce.
With consideration for privacy, we have established a system that allows employees to operate with the consent of the company by providing a function to turn location information on and off. In the future, we aim to further expand our services, such as analyzing accumulated data with AI and using it to improve work efficiency.
"Linkit Maps" will attract more and more attention in the future as a powerful tool that solves on-site issues and supports smoother and safer work execution.