TomTom to acquire TeleAtlas

Well, there goes any chance of getting NAVTEQ on the USA TT1... Drats!

It seems that it's going to be TeleAtlas or nothing in the future. That really is a shame.

Though the deal may make perfect business sense to TomTom, the future for TT consumers doesn't seem so rosy. I was much happier when there was a ghost of a chance that someday TomTom would get their head on straight and switch to USA-based Navteq services here in the states. You simply don't have to try very hard to discover some MAJOR deficiencies and inaccuracies with European-based TeleAtlas, once you've worked with Navteq maps.
 
My observation is that this ups the ante for an acquisition of NavTeq by a major player. Google and NavTeq already have a close relationship, and buying NavTeq would give Google ownership of a major information source as well as intellectual property. Microsoft would be interested as a defense against Google as well as expansion for their own mapping and navigation business. Garmin can't be happy about the prospect of NavTeq going to a competitor and so could bid on their own or with partners.

As for NavTeq itself, it will be competing not only with companies that are farther up the food chain (Google, Microsoft) and aggressively expanding their services in ways that could eat into NavTeq's core business (directly and/or indirectly), but now they have a motivated, well-funded, and integrated competitor in TomTom that could alter the landscape and have unknown consequences.

In fact, I believe it was the spectre of Google, Microsoft, etc., that made an acquisition by TomTom seem like the better long-term alternative for TeleAtlas than the risk of increasing marginalization and possible irrelevance.
 
Oh come on, lets not turn this into yet another 'TeleAtlas bashing' session...:)

In my opinion, there are just as many problems with the NAVTEQ maps. In my area, the TeleAtlas maps are actually much better. Go to any Garmin forum and you will see just as many NAVTEQ complaints as we see here on the TeleAtlas maps.

I think the direction TomTom is going with MapShare makes perfect sense and should be an excellent way to keep maps more up to date. Frankly, tapping into the user base more efficiently is probably the ONLY way these mapping companies are going to improve map accuracy withn a map release.
 
has anyone tried the nav capability in the iPhone? carrying a separate nav unit, cell phone, PDA - if it can all be done well in an iPhone, its kind of moot. this is where tomtom's future competition is coming from, not garmin - Apple.
 

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