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q.kontinuum writes:

Today, Nokia announced they sold their mapping business "HERE Maps" to a German automotive consortium consisting of Mercedes, BMW, and Audi
Sale of Maps business completed.

Although it was heavily rumoured for a while that Uber would acquire Nokia's Here Maps, a rival bid from German car manufacturers was accepted instead last August. But the consortium of BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler has just succeeded in buying the mapping service.

Now, with all of the necessary regulatory approvals out of the way, one obvious benefit to this transaction is that future German cars, including Volkswagens and other cars from brands in the group, will more than likely begin to have in-car satellite navigation systems driven by Here Maps.

Currently I know of three companies offering map data on a large scale: Google, HERE and TomTom. Additionally there is of course the open source solution, Open Street Map. The German antitrust-agency ("Bundeskartellamt") agreed on the deal on the base that map data remains accessible on fair terms to other car companies (sorry, only in German).

I would be interested to see some opinions on what this deal means for future technological development. Location based services and map data can be considered crucial for upcoming autonomous cars, where Google tries to get into the automotive business as well. Also for other services (finding nearest gasoline station, restaurant, etc.) and for social networking (alerts when friends are close by, e.g. traveling to Washington DC and receiving a notification that an old classmate/co-worker lives only two blocks away) location based services can be quite important. What do you think?

Full disclosure: I, the submitter, work for HERE Maps. I tried to write neutrally.

Original Submission