This is very, very interesting.
Nokia has announced their intent to buy NAVTEQ, one of the few providers of mapping data to both on-line companies like Yahoo! and Google, as well as the in-car companies like Garmin and TomTom.
I expected someone like Microsoft or Google to acquire NAVTEQ, not a mobile company like Nokia. I'm not saying that it doesn't make sense--merely that I'm a bit surprised by this deal.
Tele Atlas, another data provider in this space is often used as a supplemental data provider by these same companies. So it'll be interesting to see what happens next.
Update: It looks like (as seen in the comments below) that Tele Atlas has already been gobbled up by TomTom. The plot was already thicker than I realized...
Posted by jzawodn at October 01, 2007 09:20 AM
Acquisition by Teleatlas was announced in July
http://www.teleatlas.com/WhyTeleAtlas/Pressroom/PressReleases/TA_CT015133
Not sure if this is the right audience, but I'm sorry I didn't buy Navteq stock last year. It's a very well positioned company with no debt . The competition doesn't appear to be quite as solid.
This makes my idea of a new USA based mapping company even more viable. See http://www.tomprinty.com/2007/07/30/new-idea-monday-2-a-new-usa-based-mapping-company/
Think of all the other cell phone companies who would like to buy this data but don't want to have to license it from their competition.
I predict that Nokia will enter the PND (personal navigation device) market in a big way. Garmin and the others are going to have to pay big bucks to get their map and routing data now, unless there is another source of this type of data.
The plot might thicken further if Nokia becomes an acquisition target. The question then becomes who will be interested in buying Nokia? The search company from Mountain View or some other company?
I think there is more to this story....
Kamla Bhatt
The authorities have given a hint on legislating a split btw ITV and BskyB to maintain healthy competition in the UK, If we look at some other examples in 2007 alone mighty Google acquired nearly 6 companies including, Feedburner, Peakstream, Zenter, Grand central VOIP and Image America for better setallite coverage, now if you closely see whats happening here i think GPS and next Gen broadcasting is next big market that every big company is trying to get into.
It seems that Nokia has ambitions of being the default information provider on the mobile landscape. It might as well acquire a small search engine or technology to show relevant search on its phone. At the least, this would give it better terms when it talks to yahoo and google for default search providers on its phones.
Nokia have been making a play for Navigation in the last year, they acquired Gate5 and its Smart2Go mapping software - which is now available as the Nokia Maps for many phones (not just Nokias) - plus a number of their higher end phones (N95, 6110) feature a GPS (with AGPS).
The Navteq move just shows how serious Nokia are about moving into software and internet services.
Nokia already has a mobile search application on their phones. It integrates with local providers in each country along with web ones such as Yahoo. http://mobilesearch.nokia.com
I think a few companies like Garmin should start funding OpenStreetMap instead of their competition. :)
The TomTom deal is especially interesting because they are being bought by a company with many competitors in the space. (Nokia is somewhat indirectly a competitor to NAVTEQ's key customers.)
TomTom also announced earlier this year a product called MapShare, which with their newer units allows users to submit corrections and additions to the map DB. I wondered at the time if they were going to feed that back to TeleAtlas. I guess they will. :)
For anyone interested in more about the digital mapping business and how maps are made, a DC radio station had a one hour discussion on it. It includes an interview with a guy from NAVTEQ. (Before the Nokia deal was announced.)
http://blog.agrawals.org/2007/09/19/a-conversation-on-digital-maps/
The Tele Atlas deal is especially interesting because they are being bought by a company with many competitors in the space. (Nokia is somewhat indirectly a competitor to NAVTEQ's key customers.)
TomTom also announced earlier this year a product called MapShare, which with their newer units allows users to submit corrections and additions to the map DB. I wondered at the time if they were going to feed that back to TeleAtlas. I guess they will. :)
For anyone interested in more about the digital mapping business and how maps are made, a DC radio station had a one hour discussion on it. It includes an interview with a guy from NAVTEQ. (Before the Nokia deal was announced.)
http://blog.agrawals.org/2007/09/19/a-conversation-on-digital-maps/
