TomTom has been cleared by the EC to acquire mapping company TeleAtlas. TeleAtlas provides digital maps and content forms the core of many Nav and LBS (location-based services) offering – Google Maps for example! TomTom on the other hand has sold nearly 20 mn ddevices, mostly the Sat Nav units.
Since last year, TomTom has been utilising both user-generated content and TeleAtlas mapping to inform it’s MapShare service, allowing users to feeback details of changes or errors on routes – kinda like a wikipedia for maps – well sort of.
This represents a canny move by TomTom – with the advancement of GPS/Sat Nav on to Mobile devices, anyone in the purely hardware game is going to be facing a tough time – Nokia predicts sales of 35 mn devices with GPS on this year alone! The big three “traditional GPS” vendors – TomTom, Garmin, and Navman – account for 80% of the market currently – a market the handset vendors want a (big) piece of!
Will peoples’ requirements for “convergence” (multiple services on one device) lead to the traditional GPS vendors being edged out over time? It’s anyone’s guess, but one thing I do know is that my current TomTom unit is still in use for Sat Nav duties – for now…….!
(Note: if anyone from TomTom, or any of the other manufacturers for that matter, wants to send me a review unit to test against a Mobile device, please do feel free – we are always open to giving our readers reviews of what device is best at a given feature!)
[Via: PC Advisor]