Nokia may have seized the mobile web initiative decisively from Google with the formation of the Symbian Foundation, but the stand-off between the two companies continues in many applications, and one is mapping, which will be fundamental to some of the most important growth apps in the mobile world ‘ location-based services, geographical search and navigation. Google has signed a five-year deal with TeleAtlas, now part of Dutch navigation firm TomTom, to provide maps for Google’s Android software environment and for services like Google Search. This will compete with Nokia once it completes its acquisition of Navteq, which should be cleared by the European Union early next month.
The navigation and mapping segment has seen some major deals lately, including Nokia’s massive $8.1bn purchase of Navteq, and TomTom’s $4.6bn deal for TeleAtlas. The Google agreement is far reaching and spans the search giant’s current and future map-based services and navigation across mobile, online and desktop platforms. These include Google Maps and Google Earth, including versions of these popular apps for Android.
Users of TomTom’s satellite navigation devices can send map corrections directly to TomTom, which are then verified and integrated into TeleAtlas’ maps. TomTom gets around 10,000 corrections a day from users, and the new partnership enables Google’s community of users also to submit corrections.
Apple is also aiming to play a major hand in location-based services with the 3G iPhone, which features Assisted-GPS and promises a range of map-based applications.
Nokia has said it expects location-based services and social networking to be the core services in its Ovi mobile internet portal, and is working to integrate these. As well as Navteq, it recently acquired Plazes, which is often called a social network, but is really a Twitter-like service based on social context and location (similar to the Loopt ‘friend finder’, as offered by Verizon and Apple).
This concept becomes far more impressive when placed in the context of Nokia’s location-based services, particularly navigation and mapping, by supporting a combination of context aware social activity and GPS maps. And Nokia also has the Mosh initiative, which has some social networking features but is really a community for professionals and semi-professionals to showcase and share their mobile content and applications. It also has search and messaging features and, though officially still in beta, has up to 15 million users, with the biggest bases in the US and India.
Google and Apple will also be looking to move beyond just adding mapping applications in their own right, to using these capabilities to enhance other services, and Google will have significant advantages because of its strength in search and targeted advertising. However, with Android devices still at least six months away, what it does not have is a massive handset base on which to promote its wares.