Monday, June 15. 2009

TomTom Addresses Debt with Stock Sale

The four founders will buy shares and some others will be sold via a private placement. That should drop the company debt to €700 million. The company stock price has dropped 66% in the last 12 months, with many concerns related to the debt. With the recent announcement of a nav app for the iPhone, the stock price is up. There's been speculation Apple may invest in TomTom. Forbes' discussions with analysts and insiders suggests that's unlikely.

- Financial Times

ForexYard offers an analysis of the map acquisitions in recent years. Key quoyr regarding TomTom/Tele Atlas: "'In the future this will feature in textbooks as a perfect example of how stupid management sometimes can be,' said Corne van Zeijl from SNS Asset Management, who now owns TomTom shares but did not at the time of the acquisition."

Tele Atlas Turkey Data Doesn't Match Turkish Requirements

GPS Business News reports that Tele Atlas this week informed its customers via e-mail that authorities in Turkey have held its data of that country, as it does not meet state requirements defined by the Turkish military mapping agency. Tele Atlas uses the UN country designations, which do not match those of Turkey at this time.

While this is a complex matter, I applaud Tele Atlas for its transparency.

Monday, April 27. 2009

Update: Role of Tele Atlas Lebanon Facility Changes; 120 Layoffs Expected

Update 4/27/09: I got an official statement from Tele Atlas which puts the numbers in context.

Continue reading "Update: Role of Tele Atlas Lebanon Facility Changes; 120 Layoffs Expected"

Wednesday, March 18. 2009

iPhone Turn by Turn Apps Allowed: But Don't Use Google Data

There were lots of great things in Tuesday's announcement from Google about the new OS, version 3.0 for the iPhone. Per David Pogue the new release due this summer for all platforms (free or small fee) covers all the "chronic" problems.

Those developers interested in putting maps in their apps are in luck. They can now embed maps in applications and access many of the features found in the Google Maps iPhone application.

That's great but one big frustration for users and developers has been the limitation on "turn by turn" directions; until this release they were not allowed. Now, they are, BUT you have to use "your own" data, not Google's. David Pogue puts it this way in a blog post:

Turn-by-turn directions. Programmers can now create GPS programs with turn-by-turn directions—as long as they don’t use Google’s wonderful map information. Thanks to some dumb legal restrictions, they have to supply their own map data.

Since I'm in the industry, I know about "legal restrictions" and the challenges they present. I'm looking forward to how the data providers (fee, free and open) respond to these "dumb legal restrictions." This is a marketing opportunity; let's see which companies turn it to advantage.

Tuesday, March 10. 2009

Podcast: Exploring Three Geo-related Lawsuits

This week we look at several lawsuits within the geospatial community that have made news in the past few weeks, and while we are not legal experts or lawyers, explore what they may "really" be about. Microsoft is suing TomTom; the Borings of Pennsylvania are going after Google once again and Pictometry and GEOSPAN continue to duke it out about patents.

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Thursday, February 12. 2009

TomTom Map Share Feedback Even Surprises Tele Atlas

This week, Tele Atlas (TA) announced the first release of their global street network that is augmented with data from TomTom Map Share, a service offered to users of TomTom portable navigation devices (PND) that allows them to independently report a variety of road network changes including impedences, new signage, etc. The feedback is sent to TA, a TomTom company, but as a consequence of collecting so much additional data, TA recognized that it was also capturing new road geometry not previously mapped.

Users of TomTom PNDs have the option of providing feedback in a few different ways. One is to manually indicate road blockages, for example, but another is to share certain bits of data such as speed and position. As it turns out,TomTom users were leaving their PNDs on even in areas where there was sparse or no road coverage such as certain regions of Eastern Europe. This feedback made it's way to TA database managers that are recognizing that new road segments were being added to the community contributed data. This new information allows the company to selectively dispatch crews to verify new road geometry and perhaps identify pockets of new users for additional marketing and advertising.

I spoke to Mr. Arnout Desmet while attending the Map World Forum conference in Hyderbad. Directions just recently interviewed Mr. Desmet when it was announced that TA had signed a agreement with the Survey of India (SOI) to incorporate SOI data into the TA road database. He also informed me about TA's historical speed profiles which are now being incorporated into traffic information. TA began collecting speed information in 2006 and now has a database of historical profiles in 5 minute increments for various times of day and now over months of time. Essentially, TomTom users are acting as probes on the street network collecting a vast amount of data that now equals twice the entire road network of Europe every 24 hours according to Mr. Desmet. He believes this is a unique service that TomTom provides to users.