Man, tough welcome to the mapping world for the newly 
launched Apple Maps. There’s been a ton of commentary from all quarters, some insightful, some less so. I debated chiming in, partly because so much has already been said and partly because I have several friends on the Apple Geo Team. They’re smart, dedicated people and I suspect that today was pretty brutal over there. I didn’t want to pile on. Continue reading Hi Apple. Welcome to the Mapping World. How was your first day?
August 30, 2012: The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reported that Google had acquired the rights to a set of 7 patents from deCarta. I worked at deCarta from 2005-9 and am pretty familiar with the patents so I thought I’d comment on the significance. However, nothing here is based on proprietary or confidential information; it’s all readily available to anyone who wants to read the patents closely but, since I’ve done that, I thought I might save anyone interested the trouble. Continue reading Google acquires deCarta SoLoMo Patents
The problem with World Domination is that the world turns out to be a pretty big place. Maintaining dominance in all parts of that world gets pretty tough. Ask the Romans. World Dominators are typically subverted not be someone else who wants to dominate the whole world but by focused efforts to take and own a specific part of that world. I think that’s what we saw yesterday at the unveiling of Apple Maps. Continue reading New Kids on the Block: Apple Maps Launch
In my long ago sales career, my boss/mentor schooled me in the art of “laying down landmines”, his description of the practice of configuring the competitive discussion to best suit your advantages and mitigate your disadvantages. The goal was to educate the customer on what was important (a) first, before your competition and (b) in such a way that he’s ask your competitor about stuff that you knew he didn’t have. Nothing new there; it’s Sales 101.
That’s what Google Maps just did today, a week in advance of the anticipated Apple Map launch. The things they announced were nice, but Google introduces nice stuff on their maps every month with a lot less fanfare. They have been since 2004. And that was the real point they were making. Continue reading Google Maps Laying Down Landmines
INRIX put out a new iPhone app for traffic a few weeks ago. I promptly downloaded it and then forgot to use it. Just got around to it yesterday.
I think someone finally got a traffic app right. Continue reading INRIX gets Traffic Right
It looks like the next two weeks will have a lot of talk about 3D maps. Apple is widely anticipated to be breaking from Google with a new offering based on the C3 technology, likely announced at WWDC June 11-15. And Google, in what looks like a move to pre-empt Apple has just announced a Mapping event the week before that strongly hints at some new 3D technology (6/6/12 Update: See comments on Google’s event here). And Nokia has been collecting LIDAR data through NAVTEQ for years and can’t be far behind. This will position 3D and the Next New Thing; the next competitive battlefield in mapping, and therefore in the $30B local search market.
There is a new competitive dimension in mapping, but it is not the z-axis. It is however vertical; specifically, the vertical integration of geo-data with the geo-platform. Continue reading The New Dimension in Mapping – Not the One you Think.
com-mod-i-ty: noun: a mass produced unspecialized product
During the cocktail hour at last week’s Where 2012 conference I had a conversation that I hear a lot these days: Maps are just a commodity now. Google’s move to charge for maps has sparked an well publicized exodus to mapping alternatives; many, but not all based on OpenStreetMap. The statement always bothers me…granted there are many open source alternatives out there now, but has it really gotten that easy, that reproducible, that “unspecialized” that it can be bought and sold with the same lack of differentiation as wheat futures and pork bellies? Continue reading Are Maps Really Commodities?
Recent patent battles in mobile have raised the value of controlling a war chest of IP to secure one’s position among the super-powers in tech’s version of the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). With news that Apple has recently secured the vaunted “Killer Patent” for location services, there is new speculation about a new round of patent wars in the location space and specifically, the social location market. With so many expectations resting on “SoLoMo”, any hammer lock on Intellectual Property (IP) in this area is likely to get the tech media into full on hyperventilation mode.
I am not a patent expert and can’t comment on the validity or strength of the Apple (or any other) patent. But I know this: The Apple patent comes from the Dot.Com v1 era (1999-2001)…and there is more where that came from. If SoLoMo is the next hot market, the next rush may be to buy patents and IP in this area. Continue reading SoLoMo: The Next Patent Battlefield?
As part of the keynote address at the AppUp Elements Conference, Intel announced that they had agreed to acquire Telmap, the Israel-based location platform that has supplied navigation and mapping to many wireless carriers including O2, Vodafone, Orange and others. The reported price was $300M or so. If true, that’s a great result for Telmap. They’re good guys and have been at it for a while, so congratulations.
Update Oct 8, 2011: There is a lot of skepticism about this number. Telmap had reported revenue of $30M, which makes a $300M acquisition seem unlikely. For comparison, NIM was bought at closer to 2-3X revenues). Continue reading Intel Acquires a Location Platform
Ludovic Privat of GPS Business News interviewed me for a podcast about M&A trends in the Location Business. Unfortunately, it is in the subscription section of the site so it’s a little hard to get at, but I guess I should be flattered to be considered “Premium Content”! We cover a range of topics, including recent acquisitions of Where.com by eBay, Pelago by Groupon and Navigon by Garmin plus some related topics such as general trends in the market, Nokia’s consolidation of NAVTEQ into their Location Services group, etc. If you can get to it, I think it’s worth a listen. If you can’t, ping me and we can talk about it.