Location platform and data provider deCarta made a flurry of announcements today that seek to position the company as the leading alternative to Google for local search content, maps and related services for carriers and handset OEMs. The company announced some new partnerships, a new navigation application and an upgraded map-based local search offering, MapSearch.

Here are the components:

• MapSearch Content Cloud: MapSearch customers can upload customized or tailored content to the MapSearch Content Cloud.
• MapSearch APIs: Expanded APIs allow MNOs to deploy local search across most major mobile handset platforms (Android, iPhone, bada, J2ME, Mobile JavaScript) as well as through computer browsers.
• MapSearch Engine: deCarta's Local Search Engine provides the most advanced spatial search including search around locations, search along a route, category search, free text search, international geocoding, international direction finding, directory search, UGC search, geo-fencing and more.
• Navigation: deCarta Navigation is an “off-board” solution, with the map data stored in the cloud, allowing frequent map updates and easy integration with dynamic content. It is available on Blackberry, Android and many Java ME platforms covering a wide range of mobile devices. And because deCarta Navigation is built on this same platform, it can be tightly linked to other location based services. deCarta’s MapSearch is used as the search engine making it easy to navigate to a local search result in a seamless user experience. deCarta Navigation also includes integration API’s that allow third party developers to incorporate navigation as a core feature of any
  application.

The quote in the release from deCarta CEO Kim Fennel is very telling in terms of the pitch to partners: "MapSearch is all about delivering control of state-of-the-art mobile local search applications back to the MNOs and Handset OEMs."

Telenav offers a similar value proposition and positioning, although it's not quite as broad a product offering.