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More on Nokia's Acquisition of NAVTEQ

posted by Satri on Thursday October 04, @11:53AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the a-tsunami-of-analysis dept.
NAVTEQ The Industry Maps
As expected, the Nokia acquisition of NAVTEQ made ink flow. I'm to blame for not having linked to the official press release in my previous coverage. Amongst the reactions, here's Vector One short analysis, GeoCarta discuss how this acquisition could mean trouble for Garmin, and then there's All Points Blog extensive coverage: links to many media reactions, link to why Nokia should now buy Skype, link to why Google never considered buying NAVTEQ themselves and the impact on the price paid by TomTom for TeleAtlas.

Related Stories

TomTom Buys TeleAtlas 2 comments [+]
ixcer writes "A joint press release announces that TomTom, the world’s largest navigation solution provider, will acquire Tele Atlas, the biggest data provider for navigation systems, including Google, Yahoo!, AOL and Nokia. The announcement starts this way... "TomTom N.V. (“TomTom”) and Tele Atlas N.V. (“Tele Atlas” or the “Company”), jointly announce that the expectation is justified that an agreement can be reached in connection with a public offer by TomTom for all outstanding shares of Tele Atlas at an offer price of € 21.25 in cash, (the “Offer Price”) per ordinary share (the “Offer”).

The Supervisory Board and the Management Board of Tele Atlas (the “Boards”), after having duly considered the strategic, financial and social aspects of the proposed transaction, support the intended Offer and conclude that the Offer is in the best interests of the shareholders and all other stakeholders of Tele Atlas. The Boards of Tele Atlas will, when the Offer is made by TomTom, recommend acceptance of the Offer by the shareholders of Tele Atlas."" Update: 07/23 17:41 GMT by S : All Points Blogs provides more links such as the Reuters article.
Application Domains: TomTom and Garmin in Tele Atlas Bidding War 2 comments [+]
It looks like the TomTom buyout of Tele Atlas isn't a done deal. Bloomberg is reporting Garmin will make an offer for Tele Atlas just before TomTom's offer expires. From the article,

"A bidding war has started," said Jesper Kruger, who helps manage about $64 billion at ATP in Copenhagen. "TomTom needs this asset, so they will have to increase their offer by at least 20 percent."

Watching competitors TomTom and Garmin fight this out will be interesting. It could get even more interesting if others jump into to this bidding war as well. Navteq and Tele Atlas were really the only viable world players for that kind of data and with Navteq getting bought by Nokia, TeleAtlas is a unique opportunity. Update: 10/31 17:17 GMT by S : Here's the associated press release from Garmin.
NAVTEQ Launched LBS Challenge with $3 Million in Prizes [+]
A colleague working at NAVTEQ wrote to me about the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge [59k pdf] at www.LBSChallenge.com and the possibility to win your share of $3 Million in cash and prizes. The details are: "Americas Registration Closes on December 7th and APAC Registration Closes on February 29th. Want to put your LBS application in the hands of millions of mobile device users? Enter the 2008 NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge for your chance at cash, prizes, and the opportunity to showcase your location-enabled application to the entire LBS industry. Eight previous LBS Challenge contestants have received venture capital funding and nine past LBS Challenge winners have launched commercial applications on major wireless carriers, including Verizon Wireless and Sprint. Visit www.LBSChallenge.com to register. View the Video Presentation to experience this rich event."
NAVTEQ and Garmin Agreement & Garmin Withdraws from the Tele Atlas Bid 1 comment [+]
A few geoblogs highlighted Garmin's withdrawal from the Tele Atlas acquisition bid and the long term agreement between Garmin and NAVTEQ (owned by Nokia). The Map Room links to a short Engaget story and APB to an article on the withdrawal. All Points Blog provides a few additional links on the settlement of Garmin with TomTom regarding intellectual property cases. The agreement's introduction: "NAVTEQ (NYSE: NVT), a leading global provider of digital maps for vehicle navigation and location-based solutions and Garmin Ltd. (Nasdaq: GRMN), today announced the completion of a long-term agreement that provides Garmin access to NAVTEQ map data through 2015 with an option to continue through 2019." See also related stories below.
Application Domains: The Paperless Map Is the Killer App [+]
GIS Lounge links to a BusinessWeek article named "The Paperless Map Is the Killer App". From the article: "First, cell phones made the streetcorner pay phone obsolete. Now they're doing away with the need to ask for directions. A surge in phones with built-in satellite navigation capability has sparked a wave of creative mapping and locating services. And it has set off a multibillion-dollar scramble by companies to buy up digital navigation technologies. [...] As more players jump into navigation, it has triggered a wave of deal-making that reflects the nervousness of established players. Makers of car-based or other dedicated (nonphone) devices worry that competitors will gain control of essential mapping data, which show names and locations of streets, homes, restaurants, and hotels and must be regularly updated." Related are the 162 million navigation-ready cell phones hitting the streets this year.
NAVTEQ's Sale Faces a Detour [+]
An Anonymous Voxel writes "Chicago Tribune has a writeup on some emerging problems in Navteq's aquisition by Nokia: "European antitrust regulators have raised concerns over the acquisition of Chicago-based digital map provider Navteq by Finnish cell phone-maker Nokia, delaying an $8.1 billion deal that is poised to marry the world's largest digital navigator and handset manufacturer. [...] European Commission said it "has opened a detailed investigation" into the deal after a preliminary review prompted "serious doubts" over how competition in the region would be affected. The antitrust body has until Aug. 8 to make a decision on the matter."" Related stories copied below.
Application Domains: Nokia's Maps 2.0 now in Beta [+]
BBC News writes about Nokia's Maps 2.0 beta release. Some exerpts from the article:
* "Nokia is taking navigation services out of the car so it can always be with you," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, president and CEO of the firm.
* "Nokia's announcement underlines its belief that GPS chips will become as ubiquitous in mobile phones as cameras. It has already made a $6bn (£3bn) investment in mapping company NavTeq to show that it is putting its money where its mouth is." * Mr Kallasvuo said: "Navigation is one of the foundations of the context-aware mobile phone. We believe it will be as important as voice capability was 20 years ago."
Application Domains: WSJ on the Tele Atlas & NAVTEQ Duopoly [+]
The Map Room links to a Wall Street Journal article on the digital roads duopoly between NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas. From the article: "Neither bid could be justified by the financial performance of the companies -- Navteq is modestly profitable while Tele Atlas is losing money -- but analysts say the buyers were willing to pay a "strategic premium" because of the value of mapping data to all players in the GPS industry. Now investors and regulators are raising questions about the implications of the two deals." See also related stories below.
Technology: Yahoo! Extends Use of NAVTEQ Globally [+]
All 72 countries of NAVTEQ's map database will now be available to Yahoo! according to an announcement made by NAVTEQ on GisUser.com this morning. Among the back and forth of "we love you" and "no, we love you more" quotes in the announcement is this from Jeremy Kreitler, director of product management, Yahoo! Maps,

"As we continue to expand the range of sites that integrate Yahoo! Maps, particularly in the mobile and international areas, NAVTEQ's single global specification makes integration simple and allows us to put more of our focus on building great products."
Application Domains: Location-Based Services, TomTom, Nokia and more 3 comments [+]
Here's a few geonews items mainly related to cellphones and location-based services. Spatial Sustain informs us of the new "send to GPS" feature linking Google Maps and TomTom devices. Second, MacRumors discuss an Engaget story about TomTom (possibly, it's a rumor!) developing a GPS module for Apple's iPhone. Meanwhile, APB links to a NYT article wondering if Nokia can make serious inroads in the American market of cellphones and location-based services, and finally, APB runs a short entry on TeleNav and Navizon offering free small location-based services applications. Several related previous stories copied below.
Nokia To Buy NAVTEQ [+]
In case the news hasn't reached you guys yet, Nokia is in talks to purchase NAVTEQ. I heard it from a 3rd party source, but it seems like it's shaking things up a bit (for them at least). A quick google search reveals some news activity today about it: read more on Bloomberg and Trading Markets. Update: 10/01 20:03 GMT by S : APB discuss the impact of the deal on Garmin. Slashdot discuss the acquisition. Expect more analysis from various medias in the coming days.
Slashgeo: NAVTEQ's Network for Developers Supports Slashgeo.org 4 comments [+]
It's my pleasure to announce that NAVTEQ Network for Developers(TM) (NN4D), introduced a year ago, is an active supporter of Slashgeo.org. This is great news for our thousands of geospatial professional readers. It opens the door to the sharing of additional pertinent content from NAVTEQ and will increase Slashgeo's visibility. We are also planning a few new related features which may interest several of our readers. No money is involved in the deal and rest reassured that Slashgeo will stay neutral and continue aggregating and discussing geonews from the geospatial community as a whole.
A Few Words on NAVTEQ's Participation in JSR 293 [+]
Adam Grabowski writes "Recently Mike Frey, NAVTEQ Principal Architect became involved in representing NAVTEQ on the JSR 293 Location API 2.0 expert group. JSR 293 is the follow-up to the JSR 179 Location API for Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) proposed by Nokia in 2002 and released in September 2003. JSR 293 adds services for geocoding, navigation and map display, filling out the suite of services needed to develop location-based applications on a mobile device. It increases the number of Java classes and interfaces from 13 to 40. Participating on the JSR 293 Location API 2.0 expert group is exciting because of the opportunity to contribute to the development of a standard that will enable Java applications to run with little or no change on many different mobile devices and carriers. Download the article here — http://developer.navteq.com/getDocument.do?docId=3119. Note, requires a NN4D login." Editor's note: we're working on giving direct access to these documents to Slashgeo registered members without the need of a separate NN4D account. This feature may however not be available until late next fall.
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