I'm wazed and confused: why is the value of TomTom still beaten down and off the map?

Back in June of this year, when Google announced the purchase of navigation app maker Waze for $1 billion, I was sure that the next big deal to be announced would be a purchase of TomTom. TomTom is a leading vendor of navigation devices, but the real value in TomTom is their Tele Atlas digital maps unit. TomTom purchased Tele Atlas in 2007 for €2.9 billion or around $4 billion at the time. What's amazing is that TomTom's current enterprise value is $1.4 billion, or less than half of what it paid for Tele Atlas six years ago. And around 1/3 the current value of Yelp.

Over the years, smartphone vendors have been busy paying top dollar for location-related companies. Apple, for example, who previously told the world to "get lost" with their own-branded maps and navigation services, recently bought Locationary and Embark, to begin bringing more maps talent and code in-house.

Yet in the on-going location frenzy, TomTom and Tele Atlas were left alone -- and rather unloved. Many industry and Wall Street analysts (and I) have predicted that TomTom would be bought out by someone. Apple, Toyota, Microsoft. Somebody. But this hasn't happened yet.

Now this leads one to question the value of digital maps altogether. Has maps data been so commoditized by Google and crowd-sourced approaches that complete collections are worth practically nothing? I have to admit that I'm not sure what's going on here. Perhaps all the value has moved up the stack to services that run on top of maps.

So far for TomTom, the journey has not been much of a reward. Will anyone find value here?

Verdict: TomTom is hands down a loser in the location frenzy.

Garmin HUD Navigation

Nice idea. It would be great to see this as a common accessory for smartphone drivers:

STORY | GARMIN PR

Apple’s new Maps: Great eye candy, but you can’t take it with you (no offline maps).

MIT Tech Review story >>

Without offline maps, imagine the mobile bandwidth crunch during rush-hour traffic in iPhone-heavy markets like San Fran and Stockholm.

As part of Apple’s iOS 6 announcement yesterday came some expected news of a new Maps application. As expected, Apple turned away from Google for its mapping data. As a replacement, Apple is using mapping data from TomTom/Tele Atlas. While the business model behind the switch wasn’t disclosed, it’s easy to think ahead a bit and imagine an ads-on-maps revenue sharing model.

OpenStreetMap could be one of the losers in this game of maps chess. OpenStreetMap received a great deal of publicity from Apple’s use of OSM map data.

Apple be will be offering some smooth features in Maps in iOS 6 including turn-by-turn navigation, crowd-sourced live traffic feeds, 3D mode, and voice UI via Siri.

All-in-all, Apple is rolling out some fancy navigation features in iOS6. But, unless I have completely missed something, maps cannot be downloaded for offline use. This means users will have to stream map data along the way, eating up data, taking bites out of data plans. For users roaming outside of their home countries, this can lead to some phone-bill sticker shock upon their return.

When it comes to offline maps, searching, and navigation, Nokia still leads the way with Google chipping away with incremental offline features.

Enabling offline maps for navigation could conflict with Apple’s business plans: requiring live map streaming creates a much more fertile environment for up-to-the-moment, location-based interactions. But for the consumer and operator, this can be very costly under some circumstances.

Apple’s competitors here would be wise to drive home the potential costs of this model. For mobile customers under more limited data plans or for those who roam often (which is more common in Europe), navigation could be very costly with Apple. And for operators already struggling with spectrum shortages, potential rush-hour bandwidth crunches could be another reason to thrown more support behind other mobile platforms.

Google announces limited offline maps. Can help prevent roaming sticker shock [within a 10-mile radius].

via CNET >>

This announcement is significant news for some handset vendors and more bad news for makers of personal navigation devices. The ability to conveniently pre-load maps onto an Android device means that no connection is required to stream map data while navigating. And map data can gobble up bandwidth very quickly.

Android devices did already have the ability to cache map data, but the intention was for a smoother map viewing experience. Google has also announced some improved aesthetic features for Maps and Earth such as a series of impressive 3D Fly-overs and expanded Street View.

While this might appear to be a marginal category improvement from Google and has been expected, it is meaningful to most industry players such as Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, Garmin and TomTom.

Free, high-quality offline navigation from Google has altered the playing field. Mapping has become on the of key mobile battle grounds, and no vendor can afford to get lost along the way.

TeleNav offers free, HTML5, browser-based navigation. The browser replaces the app. HTML5 is clearly the way to go.

TELENAV BLOG POST >>

Just how far can HTML5 take us?

An interesting signal for HTML5. TeleNav is claiming that they've "created the first HTML5 browser based navigation service for mobile devices!" This supports turn-by-turn navigation using the sensor features supported by HTML5.

Note that Nokia did introduce something along the same lines back in October: m.maps.nokia.com. Nokia's version supports offline maps to avoid data streaming. Believe me: you want this when roaming around Europe.

Tongue in cheek: Natural user interfaces gone too far. An example of a man–machine interface gone terribly, terribly wrong. VIDEO!

Please remember to use the power of voice UI for good instead of evil. Don't drive the end user crazy by steering them in the wrong direction.

So, is voice UI about to make its big professional debut? Is it about to play in the big leagues and sit at the adults' table along with its ITU, QWERTY and touch contemporaries?

Maybe. But any implementation can be pushed too far. When developing natural user interfaces, it's important to decide just how much natural should go into the mix. In reality, reality isn't always that great.

So UI designers, please be careful: you don't want to drive users up the wall with overly realistic interactions. Give them a break at times. Or is that, brake? Roll the tape:


http://youtu.be/2CvpnBiIcxg