Nokia beats Google to Navteq

How much value would you put on mobile based Location Based Services (LBS)?

Around US$8.1Billion according to Nokia.

Nokia announced this week that they have acquired Navteq who are an in-car & mobile navigation map company based in the US. Whilst you may not remember the name, if you live in the US and have a built in navigation system in your car, it’s more than likely it will be a Navteq system.

This is an interesting play by Nokia as it adds more fuel to the fire that Nokia is leaving the carrier based services behind and they are becoming a direct mobile service provider to their customers. This enables Nokia’s customers to use high end services such as LBS without having to sign up or be locked into a carrier.

With the rise of open operating systems & high capacity hardware in mobiles the future for developers is looking to be an open playing field.

Posted by Shane Williamson