8 replies to this topic

[natcase]

OK, so TomTom acquired TeleAtlas a few months ago, and now Nokia wants to buy Navteq, stealing a lead from Garmin.

Here's an article from Reuters on possible ramifications, including Google's potential interest in one of the two base suppliers.

Makes your head spin.

[natcase]

Further reportage from Forbes:

But Google is hedging its bets. Michael T. Jones, chief technologist of Google Earth, Maps and Local, says the company never considered buying Navteq. Instead, Google could simply recreate the data far more cheaply by tapping the mapmaking skills of its hundreds of millions of users — a wiki of maps, he suggests.

"Every day more people use our product than watch TV," he says. "They could go outside their house and draw a line on a map for us." Drivers wouldn’t dare use such a user-generated map unless it was 100% reliable, but it would suffice for local search. Jones says people in India are already creating digital maps of roads for Google.

Yeah right.

[rudy]

Further reportage from Forbes:

But Google is hedging its bets. Michael T. Jones, chief technologist of Google Earth, Maps and Local, says the company never considered buying Navteq. Instead, Google could simply recreate the data far more cheaply by tapping the mapmaking skills of its hundreds of millions of users — a wiki of maps, he suggests.

"Every day more people use our product than watch TV," he says. "They could go outside their house and draw a line on a map for us." Drivers wouldn’t dare use such a user-generated map unless it was 100% reliable, but it would suffice for local search. Jones says people in India are already creating digital maps of roads for Google.

Yeah right.

The lines might be the easy part ot create. But what about all the attribute data - number of lanes, addressing, surface type, etc.? That would be more difficult to do/police. Does anyone know how the Open Street Map people do it and what they include?

[natcase]

Further reportage from Forbes:

But Google is hedging its bets. Michael T. Jones, chief technologist of Google Earth, Maps and Local, says the company never considered buying Navteq. Instead, Google could simply recreate the data far more cheaply by tapping the mapmaking skills of its hundreds of millions of users — a wiki of maps, he suggests.

"Every day more people use our product than watch TV," he says. "They could go outside their house and draw a line on a map for us." Drivers wouldn’t dare use such a user-generated map unless it was 100% reliable, but it would suffice for local search. Jones says people in India are already creating digital maps of roads for Google.

Yeah right.

The lines might be the easy part ot create. But what about all the attribute data - number of lanes, addressing, surface type, etc.? That would be more difficult to do/police. Does anyone know how the Open Street Map people do it and what they include?

The strength of the wiki/open street map system is in urbanized places with a great deal of popular interest, but without a comprehensive plan for national/international coverage, you run into problems in remote/lightly populated areas/boring places. Of course, Friends of Google could just dump in copyrighted data YouTube-style... I can see the Ordnance Survey having a fit over YouMap. (see related discussion on Yahoo MapMixer here)

[GoldeneAdler]

That Nokia article is an interesting article.

After reading it, I wondered, If this were going to happen, then surely Navtec would stop making deals with other companies in various countries.

But then, 8.1 billion is a lot, at the same time, would Navtec not make this type of revenue somewhat easily, like in a few business years?

On the mapping side of things, I could see some harmful things if it went ahead, as our company had made a deal also, as perhaps so many other independent mapping companies in other countries in the world, and this could in turn effect our product.

Let us assume Navtec has many more future plans before deciding to call it quits and to sell.

On a lighter note, I can admit, it would be handy having a complete directory on your std mobile phone, but the quality would not be there, nor the relevant size to read maps properly, if, people would have to be willing to buy PDA's or the like, and, I for one, would not want a large PDA in comparison to a small phone in my pants back pocket.

Effectively what I am saying:
Mobile phone screen too small
Quality would most likely not be to scratch
to navigate, must be hard to read text on small screen
PDA good for it, but how many people in the world want one to begin with if quality is not the same in incar navigation?
What about instructional navigaton while driving from your mobile?Are they upto this technology yet for such a small device,I know we have it in navigational systems, but isnt this two different kettle of fish?
there is no keypad on the normal mobiles, unless you get a hook up keypad, which are slow and cumbersome to use!

General:
Many things point to negative here in comaprison to current qualities in the navigational systems, be it vehicle or current PDA like systems.

[rudy]

Just because Navteq is being bought by Nokia doesn't mean it is going to discontinue collecting and selling data to other companies. There is obviously alot of money to be made here and Nokia would be stupid to turn away from that. I would suspect that they will allow Navteq to run pretty much the way it has in the past, only now they have a unique access to the data. This is not a disaster for independent mapping companies.

[rudy]

The Economist has a story about the Nokia-Navteq deal. From the story:

For now, both Nokia and TomTom are likely to stick to their promise to keep selling the same maps they use themselves to competitors such as Google. After all, neither wants to reduce the paltry profits of their new purchases by jettisoning big clients. But in the long run, the temptation to raise prices and to give their own PNDs and services privileged access to maps may prove overwhelming.

Which would seem to support GoldeneAdler's concerns. It is expensive to create and maintain such a national database, admittedly.

[natcase]

Another pretty good story on NPR Morning Edition (US public radio news show for those outside the US) on the subject.

[Sky Schemer]

Garmin has now made an unsolicited bid for TeleAtlas.