SiRF just introduced a super-thin and price-conscious new chip SiRFstarIII GSD3ta ( biz.yahoo.com ) - a multimode A-GPS chip in an extremely small-footprint that brings SiRFstarIII GPS performance to price-conscious and space-constrained mobile devices such as cell phones.
Then, in a bold move to accelerate the adoption of location services, the world's two largest handset makers Nokia and Motorola have each introduced their own navigation services, a move that could pit them against mobile operators. (http://news.com.com/Handset+makers+get+in+on+location+services/2100-1039-6159778.html?part=dtx&tag=nl.e433 )
The handset makers - Nokia, Motorola, Sumsung, Sony-Erricson,... are different animals from the mobile operators/service providers/carriers such as Cingular, Verizon, Vodafone, ...
Armed with a GPS chip and digital map, the handset makers, which have a much much larger market and user base than Garmin/Tomtom, do not need a mobile operator to provide their own navigation and location services.
All these factors speed up competitions that Garmin and Tomtom already face, but bode particularly well for the digital map data business monopoly Navteq (NVT). |
