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Uber Wants To Buy Nokia's Mapping Services
jfruh writes: When Nokia sold its handset business to Microsoft, one of the services left that it intended to rebuild the company on was Here, its rival to Google Maps. But now a deal is said to be in the works to sell Here to Uber, a company that relies heavily on navigation services and that doesn't want to end up too reliant on Google, a potential rival in the futuristic self-driving car business.
They should just support and contribute to OpenStreetMap. The world does not need yet another proprietary map system, and Uber needs to focus on their core business rather than getting side tracked into a lot of silly vertical integration.
You should read "The Halo Effect" http://www.amazon.com/The-Halo-Effect-Business-Delusions/dp/1476784035
"Focus on their core business" is only seen as wise with the benefit of hindsight when it works well. When they lose market-share because of "The Innovator's Dilemma" then they are suddenly buffoons for being complacent and not innovating.
If these "maps" investments(Autonomous Cars BTW) pay off should we expect a retraction/public back pedaling to match the "I told you so's" that we can expect if this doesn't go well for them?
I love 'Here', downloaded Paris when I moved there, no need for data connection, unless I want public transport times. I find it clearer than google maps to orientate myself thanks to landmarks (Eiffel tower, odd shaped tower blocks etc) being 3Dish and having different textures. Haven't tried voice navigation. Google maps was really unintuitive about downloading maps, and seemed (they didn't make it clear) to make it difficult to keep maps for long or to download large areas - this might have improved.
I prefer it to Google maps on my laptop screen even.
(I have never used the Blackberry one so that might as you say also be better than Google - I just wanted to point out that Here works for me.)