AND and Friends Launch Global Digital Mapping Alliance (GDMA)

AND had hinted it was looking to team up with other smaller map data providers to offer a third independent worldwide dataset. The announcement of the Global Digital Mapping Alliance (GDMA) was made at theMobile World Congress going on this week in Barcelona. The announcement is really just a statement that the management of for now three companies is examining the potential of the Alliance, which would ideally have more partners in time. It’ll be based, as is AND, in The Netherlands.

The three companies at this point:

AND (map data coverage of W.Europe with over 350 M
people)

EMG (map data coverage of whole Great China with approx 1.300 M
people)

Orion (map data coverage of Middle East and North Africa with ca.
325 M people)

AND CEO Maarten Oldenhof said in a Reuters interview at MWC:

“The value in TomTom is in the content, in the maps, so in Tele Atlas. In a few years the PND market is dead, but until then TomTom will try to get as much out of that market as possible. The map has become the crust of the pizza, where others can add toppings to it via applications.”

- press release
- mission
- Reuters