This isn’t even a rumour, just speculation. it occurred to me that Navteq is probably on Google’s radar for possible acquisition.
This isn’t even a rumour, just speculation. it occurred to me that Navteq is probably on Google’s radar for possible acquisition.
wesman
June 12 2005, 11:20 amwhat makes you think this? as a former-navteq and current-google employee, I find the possibility at the very least intriguing….
-w
mfagan
June 13 2005, 8:39 pmwell, I say ‘radar’, certainly not ‘it will happen. but it certainly fits in with google’s mission statement, and it makes a lot of sense given google’s work in local search, online mapping, and keyhole.
on the other hand, a good question is ‘what would google gain from it,’ and I can’t immediately come up with a lot of answers. they gain a profitable company that fits their business. they gain a company that provides data to their competitors (is this a good thing)?, and they gain (i think) leverage into the car market. the google goal is to be everywhere, isn’t it, as in their mobile efforts
wesman
June 15 2005, 6:24 amanother question would be: why would they buy navteq and not tele-atlas (another, inferior, mapping company that provides data for google maps) - btw, it looks like a lot of people have been spinning a lot gears trying to figure out what google is going to buy next - a recent report apparantly uses a different radar system than you ….
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/6/12/143721/743
mfagan
June 15 2005, 6:43 amYes, I saw that kur5hin story. While I’m not even close to certain that my navteq idea is correct, I don’t think the k5 article is really in the right direction..
buzznet, to my knowledge is very similar to flickr, and google buying it may look like an ‘admission’ that they screwed up by not getting flickr. so I don’t think they will. and koders seems too narrow in focus, but I could be wrong. gurunet maybe… stumbleupon I don’t see the point. no way google would want the ODP. and i don’t see why they’d ever want myway either