Today marks the day that Nokia has sold its navigation platform Nokia Here Maps to three German car manufacturers. How much exactly was Here sold for? €2.8bn or $3 billion USD to be more precise. Uber and Baidu teamed up to Here, but Audi, BMW, and Daimler beat those two companies in the end. The deal is expected to be finished by Q1 of 2016, so we should hopefully see some newer car models from the three companies with Here Maps pre-installed. I’ll say, it will save me time from pulling up the application on my phone. Equal shares will be held by the three manufacturers with neither of them wanting more shares than the other.
What’s the reasoning behind Audi, BMW, and Daimler to purchase Here? It will allow each company the technology to create a new system for assistance and an autopilot (self-driving) feature much like the cars of Google’s. It’ll also help modern day vehicles provide real time traffic by adding in cameras and sensors and location-based capabilities.
The new owners made a statement saying:
“The acquisition is intended to secure the long term availability of Here’s products and services as an open, independent and value creating platform for cloud-based maps and other mobility services accessible to all customers from the automotive industry and other sectors.”
So, as for now, customers will still be able to use Here Maps as usual without any kind of interruption with the merger in progress.
Nokia’s President and CEO Rajeev Suri said,
“Going forward, we will focus on our planned combination with Alcatel-Lucent. Once that is complete, Nokia will be a renewed company, with a world-leading network technology and services business, as well as the licensing and innovation engine of Nokia Technologies.”
As of right now Nokia only has its networking business and its Nokia Technologies left. The networking business will be merged with Alcatel-Lucent some time next year, while the latter is what was in charge of developing the new Ozo VR camera and the Nokia N1 tablet.
With Here Maps bought out by three German car manufacturers, do you think Here will only be updated and more so available in their vehicles, or still offered to mobile device and also getting any updates? Leave your comment below, or on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter.
[button link=”http://www.zdnet.com/article/nokia-sells-here-maps-to-german-car-makers-for-2-8bn/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: ZDNet[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
