Uber Wants To Buy Nokia's Mapping Services 45
jfruh writes: When Nokia sold its handset business to Microsoft, one of the services left that it intended to rebuild the company on was Here, its rival to Google Maps. But now a deal is said to be in the works to sell Here to Uber, a company that relies heavily on navigation services and that doesn't want to end up too reliant on Google, a potential rival in the futuristic self-driving car business.
They better be fast (Score:1)
I hear Baidu wants them also.
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I've seen many people do it so I'm wondering: is the strange capitalization part of the joke? I doubt one would write RSysLogD, for example.
Re:They better be fast (Score:5, Interesting)
They should just support and contribute to OpenStreetMap [openstreetmap.org]. The world does not need yet another proprietary map system, and Uber needs to focus on their core business rather than getting side tracked into a lot of silly vertical integration.
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Their core business is moving out of the taxi service and into financial markets. 3 Billion dollars, how long have these people been around to get that kind of money?
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They got some dumbasses to take on all the risk while they get the profit - perfect Wall St material.
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Their core business is moving out of the taxi service and into financial markets. 3 Billion dollars, how long have these people been around to get that kind of money?
But...but...they're not a taxi service!
They're innovative bleeding-edge disruptive paradigm shifters in the 21st century liberalised transportation market.
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Right, because there is no such thing as a competitive advantage when it comes to technology.
Unless your tech is better, there is no advantage. How is Uber's proprietary map system going to be better than what Google, Apple, etc. have already done? They should either sign a long term license agreement with an established incumbent, or they should contribute to an open platform. Either will be far cheaper than building and maintaining their own system.
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Maps, schmaps! They need to put on a show. Why is nobody going to jail [nytimes.com]? These scams are amazing!
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You should read "The Halo Effect" http://www.amazon.com/The-Halo-Effect-Business-Delusions/dp/1476784035
"Focus on their core business" is only seen as wise with the benefit of hindsight when it works well. When they lose market-share because of "The Innovator's Dilemma" then they are suddenly buffoons for being complacent and not innovating.
If these "maps" investments(Autonomous Cars BTW) pay off should we expect a retraction/public back pedaling to match the "I told you so's" that we can expect if this doe
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"Focus on their core business" is only seen as wise with the benefit of hindsight when it works well. When they lose market-share because of "The Innovator's Dilemma" then they are suddenly buffoons for being complacent and not innovating.
Uber certainly needs to innovate. Autonomous cars are coming. Digital, constantly updated maps, are already here. Uber should USE these technologies, but they do not need to BUILD their own.
Many companies use the electric grid, the phone system, and the internet. But that doesn't mean they need to design and build their own generators, string up private phone lines to all their customers, and use a proprietary protocol to communicate. They can just use existing infrastructure.
Likewise, Uber can just us
Have' HERE' won't travel (Score:2)
It was free download; got what I paid for. UBER is out of their league tackling reincarnation of a dead product that doesn't work as a _map_. They should buy RIM Blackberry 'Traffic.app. There's a map that routes, directs, updates and beats GoogleMaps and could be bought.
Re:Have' HERE' won't travel (Score:4, Interesting)
I love 'Here', downloaded Paris when I moved there, no need for data connection, unless I want public transport times. I find it clearer than google maps to orientate myself thanks to landmarks (Eiffel tower, odd shaped tower blocks etc) being 3Dish and having different textures. Haven't tried voice navigation. Google maps was really unintuitive about downloading maps, and seemed (they didn't make it clear) to make it difficult to keep maps for long or to download large areas - this might have improved.
I prefer it to Google maps on my laptop screen even.
(I have never used the Blackberry one so that might as you say also be better than Google - I just wanted to point out that Here works for me.)
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I've only recently tried out Here and I'm very impressed. Offline maps for my whole country and offline routing that does a pretty damn good job as far as I can tell. It also has realtime traffic updates, but (obviously) only if you have it on online mode. I keep my setting to offline, so I don't know how well that feature works.
Recommend that people give it a try and, if nothing else, it's worth having in case you get to a spot with flaky phone reception. I like it more than that, though.
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Is it really Google competing with Uber or is it (Score:2)
Is it really Google competing with Uber or is it really Uber competing with Google?
In February this year Uber formed a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University to develop driverless car technology. They're now looking to buy Nokia's map technology for navigation and replace technology provided by Google maps.
Google says they aren't competing with Uber. Their drive sharing app was made internally for certain employees to carpool to work.
Google has at least $258M invested in Uber and has their chief legal
Nokia need to make sure they get paid in cash (Score:2)
I don't know how Uber plans to pay for this, but Stock Options are worthless if Uber tanks.
Nokia maps (Score:2)
Re:Could be interesting, but will Uber last? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that's why Uber is trying to diversify, and fast. Amazing that so much money was thrown at this company whose business model was, as you put it, "basically illegal".
I'm going to start a netsharing company. We're going to put up wifi routers around town and charge people for net service, but we're not going to pay for the outbound connections. Instead we're going to wardrive around cities and wherever we find an poorly secured wifi network, we'll place a repeater there that routes our outbound net traffic through it. We'll be able to offer offer cheaper net access than everyone else, get a bunch of users, and thus a bunch of revenue, and we'll have a huge margin on our balance sheet. Who wants to toss us a few billion dollars?
Or maybe I should start a construction sharing company. We'll let anyone who wants to be a "builder" sign up and offer construction to anyone who wants the job done. No, they won't be licensed or have any sort of "permits", but that's not our issue, that's theirs. The point is, they'll be able to build things really cheap! And so we'll get a bunch of users, and thus a bunch of revenue, and we'll have a huge margin on our balance sheet. Who wants to toss us a few billion dollars?
Or maybe I should start a medicine sharing company... or a sex-for-money sharing company... or a software-license sharing company... or a gunsharing company... you see, if you add the word "sharing" to it, it's not really illegal!
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Indeed. Uberpop is already banned in Germany I believe, and my government (in the Netherlands) is thinking about it.
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You have some interesting comparison. So you're effectively saying that Uber is stealing? Or Uber is using unlicensed drivers? About the only thing I can agree on is the "permits" but interestingly that is something that I applaud Uber for calling bullshit on, the medallion business.
About the only legitimate legal issue I've heard (other than above mentioned medallions) is one of insurance, and that is more of a quirk of an insurance industry that someone who drives too and from work every day can be insure
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I'm saying that they have a business model entirely based on the mass breaking of laws.
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Like Tesla circumventing laws to sell cars directly to people?
I don't really shed a tear over breaking laws that seem to exist for the sole purpose of having someone make money from your business.
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Like Tesla circumventing laws to sell cars directly to people?
I don't really shed a tear over breaking laws that seem to exist for the sole purpose of having someone make money from your business.
I'm not from the US, but I find it hard to believe that in the land of enterprise you can't sell something to someone.
However, assuming you're right, it just means that particular law is stupid and should be repealed. It doesn't mean that all laws affecting your business can be ignored.
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However, assuming you're right,
You don't read slashdot much do you? Actually I kid, but really the endless fight between Tesla and the US states have been covered here many times including Telsa offering a service where they will pickup customers from one state and drive them to a showroom in another to offer them a test drive.
One way to get laws changed is to show people how absurd those laws really are. Uber is doing a great job of that right now and I sympathise with them on a number of points. But then I live in a country where insur
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About the only legitimate legal issue I've heard (other than above mentioned medallions) is one of insurance, and that is more of a quirk of an insurance industry that someone who drives too and from work every day can be insured, but someone with identical coverage who happens to take someone else for money (commercial) is magically not. It's also a quirk that doesn't exist in many other countries where vehicles are insured for registration purposes regardless who drives them
There are pretty obvious reasons why an insurance company would charge more for insuring a taxi driver (or 18 year old in a Ferrari, or someone convicted of causing death by dangerous driving, or a racing car driver) than someone commuting to work.
But even putting this aside and assuming that there should or could be some sort of universal flat rate insurance if you nationalised the insurance industry, it is still not up to Uber to ignore or try to circumvent the current legal situation.
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OK Uber is today "valued" at what, 3Bn.
$40B [nytimes.com] and heading to $50B [usatoday.com].
Hahahaha! Good luck Uber! (Score:1)
The phone doesn't do a single thing well, but at least most functionality doesn't involve you reentering the destination while driving every time the screen sleeps. It does other things, like recalculating your route be
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Apple (Score:2)
Uh, didn't Nokia already sell they Map division to Apple when Apple was having trouble with Apple Maps after they dropped Google Maps? Apple didn't just instantly map the entire world, they had to acquire all that data...
Perhaps they just bought a licence to the data, but I had thought that they had just bought it outright. That sounds more like Apple. It would have cost a couple billion, but then they have/had mad cash on hand anyway.