Rating: Just as Nokia shuts down Navteq
Intel chose a keynote speech at app developers conference in Seattle (any irony here?) to announce that it had signed an agreement to acquire Telmap which will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel. The news comes at the same time Nokia was forced to announce that it is closing down its NAVTEQ mapping and location based services (LBS) operations in Bonn, Germany and Malvern, USA with an expected loss of 1,300 jobs. The contrast couldn’t possibly be greater. GoMo News can only speculate that Intel might have decided to go for Telmap as a means of avoiding any reliance on Google Maps. Don’t forget, Intel hasn’t entirely given up on MeeGo, either.Intel describes the acquisition as a step towards expanding its mobile software services capabilities as it continues to grow in the area of software and services.
That’s a strategy which IBM successfully pioneered to get itself out of its own reliance on hardware.
It’s actually good news for app developers, too. “With Telmap we can directly provide developers with location-based services spanning devices, operating systems and CPU architectures,” Intel said.
It continued, “Telmap will allow us to provide developers with differentiated location capabilities in the form of a standard set of location-based APIs and software that developers can easily integrate into their apps.”
These new cross-platform location capabilities offered through Telmap will allow developers to retain and impress their users via in-app and in-experience location features.
As Intel asks, “New advanced (location) capabilities with just a few lines of code – who doesn’t like that?
Meanwhile, the NAVTEQ job losses appear to form part of a total of 3,500 jobs Nokia is expecting to lose in its commerce, manufacturing and mapping divisions.
That’s on top of the 4,000 jobs which went in Nokia’s Symbian and R&D divisions recently.
