Nokia vinde HERE Maps

HELSINKI–Network equipment maker Nokia said Wednesday it is considering a potential sale of its location services unit HERE, which supplies digital mapping software to car navigation systems and to portable devices such as smartphones.

Nokia disclosed its review of HERE’s future on the heels of announcing its plan to acquire French rival Alcatel-Lucent .
The Finnish company said in a statement that it “believes this is the right moment to assess the position of HERE within the proposed new Nokia business.” Nokia gave no timeframe for the review of HERE’s future.

HERE’s visibility in the consumer market has been low compared to Google Maps, partly because the company has been mainly licensing its product to outside parties such as Yahoo , Baidu and Amazon.
Google Maps, on the other hand, has been integrated into Google’s wider offerings, including search and Android.

A free-to-download HERE application for Android was launched last fall and for Apple’s iOS platform only as recently as last month. So far the applications have accumulated about six million downloads combined, according to HERE.  That figure is very low considering that over 1 billion Android and about 191 million iOS smartphones were sold in the world last year.

Despite its currently limited consumer reach, HERE is an attractive asset because only HERE and Google own high-quality and constantly upgraded digital maps that can form part of a software ecosystem, said Mikael Rautanen, an analyst with the research firm Inderes in Helsinki.
HERE’s strength is the automotive sector. According to HERE, about 13 million new cars sold in North America and Europe last year used HERE’s maps in their built-in navigation systems. That translates into about 80% market share among the vehicles that were sold with a built-in navigation system. HERE doesn’t provide revenue figures for this sector.

Berlin-headquartered HERE is not part of Nokia’s main business of supplying equipment and software to network operators, and there has been speculation that Nokia could sell it.

Despite its currently limited consumer reach, HERE is an attractive asset because only HERE and Google own high-quality and constantly upgraded digital maps that can form part of a software ecosystem, said Mikael Rautanen, an analyst with the research firm Inderes in Helsinki.

Sursa

HELSINKI–Network equipment maker Nokia said Wednesday it is considering a potential sale of its location services unit HERE

“Nokia today announces that it has initiated a review of strategic options, including a potential divestment, for its HERE business… The strategic review of HERE is on-going and it may or may not result in any transaction,”

Doamna admin cat timp costurile internetului mobil în roaming vor fi exorbitante astea sunt vise.... Când ai o flota de TIR-uri nu poți sa te bazezi pe Waze ...  Vad ca v-a prins febra Waze

eu nu m-as baza pe vaze

N-am avut niciodata aparat GPS dedicat, dar dintre GPS-urile de pe telefon HERE mi s-a parut de departe cel mai bun. Usor de utilizat, foarte precis si, mai ales, OFFLINE!
Speram ca va ramane macar la fel de bun si daca trece la alt proprietar.

Nu stiu cum o fi pe Lumia, da' ala de pe Android e chiar petarda.