Earlier this week, TomTom-owned TeleAtlas signed a $4.6 billion, non-exclusive 5-year licensing agreement with Google to provide data for Google Maps/Earth and other mobile applications based on it’s Android open-source operating system. The contract gives Google access to data for more than 200 countries.
Mobile phones based on Google’s Android operating system will compete against the iPhone and Nokia’s Symbian OS (Nokia paid $8.1 billion for Chicago-based Navteq last year).
One interesting aspect is the symbiotic nature of the agreement, it allows the Google community to send (verified) map corrections directly to TeleAtlas. This should allow the database to be more accurate. benefiting the consumer, Google, and TeleAtlas; it could be considered a proprietary, wiki-database.
This deal between Google and TeleAtlas is not only an illustration of the epic market for quality GIS data, it demonstrates the unpredictability of markets.
It’s difficult to imagine the founders of Navteq and TeleAtlas forsaw their companies would eventually be acquired by larger Finnish or Dutch corporations.
Tags: iPhone · mobile phones3 Comments
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