Google Commoditizes GPS Navigation and changes the entire industry
Today Google announced the Google Maps for Android 2.0 and reports are that it is so awesome that it has turned the GPS navigation industry upside down. By giving away GPS software for free, it has changed the dynamics of the industry and this is reflected directly in the stock price of Garmin whose stock is down 16% and TomTom whose stock is down 21% today. I had blogged earlier about the GPS and how it was going to be come an integral part of our lives. Google is giving this awesome piece of technology away as a part of the Android device and is likely to offer it on other platforms like the iPhone and Nokia for FREE. There is absolutely no way in hell Garmin, TomTom and Nokia can compete with a GPS app that leverages Google Search to find things.
If you have used a GPS, you often find yourself searching for addresses, businesses and other points of interest. While Garmin, TomTom and Nokia have to work hard to create useful points of interest on the map by mostly using public databases and humans which is hard to scale, Google just leverages their web search technology to aggregate this information and make it available to its users. The analyst community probably forgot that one of the biggest losers due to this announcement is Nokia. Nokia paid over $8 billion to acquire Navteq which was in the business of creating maps and POI databases for GPS devices 2 years ago. Two years after this acquisition, we are yet to see a compelling service from Nokia. Whatever we have seen integrated with the Nokia phone is an amateurish attempt to build a GPS experience and the worst part is that Nokia wants to charge a subscription fee to the tune of Euro. 59.99 for an annual subscription. Please see the Nokia pricing details for Ovi Maps 3.0 here. Another traditional cartography/gps company in India which may be impacted by this is MapMyIndia.com. It may not surprise us to see Google launch Maps in India very soon which may be a pretty big blow to MapMyIndia who is running at a healthy clip in India now due to their incumbency. However I think it is a matter of time until Google closes the gap and starts giving MapMyIndia a real run for the money. I love competition when it benefits consumers directly and today Google has opened up a market that needed to be commoditized for mass adoption. Bravo Google!
PS: I tried downloading Nokia’s latest release Ovi Maps 3.0 before I wrote this article to see if they have improved their software from the previous version. Ovi Maps 3.0 cannot be downloaded over the air and it requires you to use a PC to run a piece of software called MapUploader that uploads the application to your tethered phone. I use a Mac and Nokia does not support the Mac yet for the MapUploader. This just goes on to show you how dumb the Product Managers at Nokia are. The distribution of the app itself is limited when you can’t distribute it over the air – Lame!
Further Reading:
I have tried Google Maps and Nokia Maps 2.0 on a Nokia mobile phone, and I must say that I had a better experience w/ Nokia Maps. The bad part is that none of these are offline solutions. The worst, as you said, is the subscription fee Nokia charges for route calculation and voice-guided navigation.
However, admit that having offline maps on your phone (which Nokia offers and Google doesnt) is a big plus. If only Nokia releases a Maps API and a Navigation API to public, they’re gonna head straight north.
Prasun
October 30, 2009 at 8:51 am
Here were the real issues I faced with Nokia Maps.
1. It took about 5-6 minutes before it found the satellite signal.
2. Google maps used IP targeting and possibly cell triangulation to get my current location so i did not have to wait till the GPS receiver found the satellites.
3. the POI data that Nokia had for India was very shallow
With the demos I see of Google Maps 2.0 which seems better than Garmin or TomTom ( I own both devices) I think Nokia’s Maps looks like it is from stone-age.
Abinash Tripathy
October 30, 2009 at 9:02 am
Spot on! Abinash. As a diehard Nokia user, I am clear that my next phone will NOT be NOKIA. So how did they manage to p**s off an 8 yr relationship? Thanks to the “Navigator” phone that I so joyfully presented to my wife, who in the tradition of ‘women drivers’, finds Delhi a pain (actually so do the rest of us).
Everything you say is true..what’s worse, is that there’s NO effective help for the poor buggers who buy the product…so, if people with average IQ’a like yours truly from “India” can’t figure it out..how will “Bharat”(aka Rural India)..wow..$8 billion!!!
Sanjay Dwivedi
November 3, 2009 at 1:38 pm
[...] From Actionable Insights into the World of Indian Startups [...]
Google Commoditizes GPS Navigation and changes the entire industry | Igniting Startups - nPost
November 10, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I used Google Maps application on my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic to navigate the way to my new office at Bangalore. The app simply rocks! The dynamic location pointer thing is pretty cool.
Shantanu Kumar
November 18, 2009 at 2:28 pm
It is very heartening to see Google release voice navigation feature for the Android 2.0 based Motorola Droid. That being said, voice navigation is currently available only in the US
Hopefully they release Google Maps with voice assist for our very popular Symbian devices. The almost imminent launch of 3G services in India would also do wonders and we would be finally rid of the lousy MapMyIndia service.
Kartik
December 3, 2009 at 10:44 am
Off topic and maybe irrelevant, but why is everyone looking at 3G as the next-big cure for all things evil (bandwidth, accessibility, affordability)?
At 500 bux for 1 gig (or somewhere there) I think it’s the last thing users will turn to.
Has competitionlead to significant reduction in prices of GPRS?
Pranav
December 17, 2009 at 10:27 am
informative
Karie Todesco
February 4, 2010 at 1:37 pm