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Garmin in talks to buy Navigon?
It's hard out there for a company making endangered gadgets. According to Reuters, flailing satnav maker Navigon could be acquired by none other than Garmin, which has struggled itself to maintain strong handheld navigator sales in the face of stiff competition from smartphones. The deal could be worth somewhere in the "mid-double-digit million" Euro range -- a none-too-helpful estimate, but enough for us to understand that the personal navigator market is in such a state that Garmin could scoop up its rival for a pretty modest sum. Garmin, for its part, has been doing well, considering -- it's the top navigator brand in the US (a market Navigon has long since exited), and its profit nearly tripled in the most recent quarter. That's largely thanks to those bestselling navigators, but also because the company's been wise enough to reinvent itself as a purveyor of running watches and expand its boating and aviation businesses. In any case, if the Navigon brand is going bye bye, it looks like we could find out as soon as this month.
Microsoft and Nokia in talks over Windows Mobile
We got a preemptive taste of what something like this might feel like with that banged up impostor-phone, the "Nokia" N94i -- but now things are getting real... ish. According to Microsoft's mobile communications business international marketing director (phew) John Starkweather, Redmond is in talks with the folks from Finland about getting Windows Mobile onto Nokia handsets. "They obviously have significant investments in Symbian but there are a lot of places where we have significant synergies and we would love to see the day where those synergies would extend completely with Windows Mobile," said Starkweather, though he couldn't say when or if any agreement will be met. "We work closely with Nokia and we would love to have them go all the way," Starkweather said. "It's something we talk about all the time." Hold up John, we think before you go all the way, Nokia's gonna want a ring on that finger... do we hear wedding bells?[Via IntoMobile]
