Nokia wraps up acquisition of NAVTEQ

It was already all but a done deal once the shareholders gave the thumbs-up and EU regulators gave the go-ahead, but Nokia has now announced that it has officially wrapped up its acquisition of NAVTEQ -- a move that, coincidentally, comes just a few days after TomTom and Tele Atlas finalized their own deal. As you might expect, both Nokia and NAVTEQ have nothing but praise for the $8.1 billion deal, with Nokia President and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo saying that, "Nokia and NAVTEQ together make a powerful combination, and customers will benefit as the transaction enables NAVTEQ to accelerate its expansion into new regions and introduce innovative new content." NAVTEQ President and CEO Judson Green further added that, "Nokia has a deep understanding of the requirements for the industry," before dishing out the usual line about how the deal will benefit the customers most of all.

[Anthony @ Jul 10th 2008 11:53AM]

This kind of bothers me because one of the things that Nokia does now is charge monthly (or annual) fees for routing on their phones.

Garmin's never done this & looks to be following the same model for their upcoming phones.

I believe the days of cheap, subscription-less GPS are nearing an end.

[UFAnders @ Jul 10th 2008 3:29PM]

Are you kidding me? Subscription based GPS?

Wasn't the reason behind declassifying the use of GPS satellites to give the people free use of a far-less accurate (as compared to the military's use) but still usable guidance platform?

It seems to me that this will create a surge in open-source GPS hardware and take sales away from Nokia and other fee-based receivers. Not that I'm complaining, GPS is kinda easy to work with and I don't like recurring expenses. =]

[Kaptain75329 @ Jul 10th 2008 10:07PM]

You're paying something of a subscription anyway to use your GPS navigation system already - if you want the maps to be up to date, you'll have to spend money yearly to keep it that way, plus the couple of hours or so to update the device. I'm OK paying a GPS subscription once a year that's the same price as the annual map update so long as this includes traffic service and over the air map updates. That's pretty much Dash's model, seems to be where AT&T is heading too. At some point, phones and GPS nav systems will be merged; we're on that path now.

Consumer electronics companies are figuring out that the key to longevity at this stage in our economic development is the sale of subscription-based services, not commodities. This trend isn't going away, but maybe it's not such a bad thing either.

[Mark Anderson @ Jul 10th 2008 12:11PM]

Nokia charge per use - you buy a weekly, monthly or yearly licence.

[Josh L @ Jul 10th 2008 12:13PM]

Can't we get a ban over here already?

[ToniCipriani @ Jul 10th 2008 12:59PM]

Good. Now Nokia, bring us new software to replace the dreadful Wayfinder on the N810 without a stupid subscription.

[my @ Jul 14th 2008 8:05AM]

Well, you can always use Maemo Mapper on the N810 for free if you don't like Wayfinder.

http://gnuite.com/nokia770/maemo-mapper/

[AlphaTeam @ Jul 10th 2008 4:26PM]

Hopefully now I can get a better maps when I travel to China and use my Nokia E/N Series phone to navigate with GPS.

[markgillam @ Jul 10th 2008 5:11PM]

great...now my soul is owned by nokia...almost time to head to work for nav...err...nokia!