Nokia Bets Big On Mapping

angry tapir writes "Nokia and Oracle have joined forces on mapping, with details of the deal to be announced at the Oracle OpenWorld conference. To differentiate its smartphones from the competition, Nokia is betting big on location as well as imaging technology. Oracle is expected to add Nokia's mapping technology to its applications. Part of Nokia's location strategy is signing deals for the use of its Navteq mapping technology with as many companies as possible. Besides the deal with Oracle, Nokia has recently announced contracts with car makers BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen and Korean Hyundai, which will all use Navteq map data in some of their vehicles. Garmin will also start using Nokia data on transit services and walking routes to power a new Urban Guidance feature, which will be available as part of its Navigon app for Android and iOS. Nokia's most important partner on navigation, though, is Microsoft. All smartphones based on Windows Phone 8 will have Nokia's Drive application as standard, while Microsoft's Bing Maps geographical search engine uses Nokia data."

Comments

Makes sense

[Kupfernigk]

Nokia needs to differentiate itself to survive, and it seems to have found a workable niche just as Apple stumbles.By getting Oracle and Microsoft as partners, they also get a degree of protection from American protectionism, that kept them out of the US market in the past. It pains me to write it, but we may have to re-evaluate Elop.

Re:Makes sense

[mrjb]

Unless I'm gravely mistaken, they've got some excellent talkers working there. I don't see the business case, but apparently someone managed to convince the management enough for this to make the news. Nokia aren't not exactly first to market, so they better get it right. Because they've got some fantastic competitors in Tom Tom, OpenStreetMaps, Google and yes, even Apple. Unless they "Get it right" and come up with a bloody good reason for people to switch from their cost-free-and-good Android Google Maps, they're just throwing money into a bottomless pit.

Re:Makes sense

[Romwell]

. Because they've got some fantastic competitors in Tom Tom, OpenStreetMaps, Google and yes, even Apple. Unless they "Get it right" and come up with a bloody good reason for people to switch from their cost-free-and-good Android Google Maps, they're just throwing money into a bottomless pit.

Actually, Nokia gets it right and Android doesn't. Nokia's maps are free, and you can pre-load the whole continent on your cellphone, and use your GPS and naviagation offline (helpful for hiking in most of the US where there's no signal, to say nothing of data connection). Nokia also offers turn-by-turn navigation with text-to-speech in real time, while many cheaper navigation devices don't. In short, you can't even compare Nokia Maps to Google Maps; the latter is much better for looking POI, but for navigation Nokia Maps takes the cake.

Re:Makes sense

[stephanruby]

Unless I'm gravely mistaken, they've got some excellent talkers working there. I don't see the business case, but apparently someone managed to convince the management enough for this to make the news.

Actually, there is nothing new here. Nokia already invested big on mapping when it acquired NavTeq and NavTeq already had most of these relationships in place at the time it was acquired by Nokia in 2008.

The only new item I'm noticing here is the relationship with Oracle, but my guess is that this isn't new either and that we're only getting this bit of news because of the current JavaOne conference.

Nokia aren't not exactly first to market, so they better get it right. Because they've got some fantastic competitors in Tom Tom, OpenStreetMaps, Google and yes, even Apple. Unless they "Get it right" and come up with a bloody good reason for people to switch from their cost-free-and-good Android Google Maps, they're just throwing money into a bottomless pit.

What are you talking about? NavTeq was already (and is still) the largest mapping OEM in the World. NavTeq data was already being used by TomTom, Microsoft, Apple, and even Google in some parts. Part of the issue here is that few companies possess all the mapping data in the world, so they have to license a patchwork of maps from a bunch of different mapping vendors and NavTeq was already the largest amalgamation of many of those mapping companies.

Now if you want to talk about how NavTeq is consolidating itself more and more, but now is mostly standing still technology-wise -- compared to many of its competitors. Then yes, we can talk about that, but don't ever say that the problem isn't that NavTeq wasn't the first to market. Technically, I don't think anyone can claim to be first in mapping technology, even Christopher Columbus can't claim that. But if anything in this case, I'd say the opposite was true, and that for a time, NavTeq was first to market, mostly in the 90s, and it's still the biggest right now, but now unfortunately, the people running NavTeq are currently either too old, too arrogant, or too set in their ways, to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape of diverging mapping technologies. Their only strategy right now seems to buy out their competition, so they can maintain their old prices, but that strategy doesn't seem to be working, that's why they were eventually bought themselves by Nokia.

Re:Makes sense

[LWATCDR]

Nokia bought Navteq which was making navigation software long before there was an iPhone or Android so they are actually well entrenched in the system. That being said I fear that Nokia is looking for some way to survive. Windows Phone 7 was a disaster and I can see no reason for the optimism the media has shown for Windows 8. Windows 7 was supposed to be the big change now we are told that it will be WIndows 8 yet they have not let the press use it and the SDK has not been released. Then you have the abuse Nokia has suffered from Microsoft in their relationship. Nokia was supposed to be the flagship partner and now Microsoft is saying that the HTC device is "the Windows 8 Phone"! With the upcoming release of Windows 8 which is supposed to fix everything. Microsoft has killed the market for Windows phones. Nobody should buy any Windows phone on the market because they are all obsolete and the Windows 8 phones are not on the market yet. So Nokia's cash flow from phone sales is reduced to close to 0. What a deal.

Re:Catching up

[Anonymous Coward]

but it's not available offline.

Re:Evil seed

[Chrisq]

After Microsoft, Nokia chooses a partnership with Oracle ... They really started late on the evil scene, but they decided to learn from the best !

Next they are going to partner with diabold and Facebook. That way they can work out who you are likely to vote for and if the don't like it give you directions to the wrong polling station. As a backup diabold will miscount as usual though.

Re:Catching up

[UngodAus]

Screw map parts, you can download map countries with Nokia's mapping solution, not just the current "navigation". The big differentiator with Nokia maps is the ability to operate without a data connection. Android can't do that yet (even with the saving feature).