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Technology Stocks : Trimble Navigation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert A. Sutherland who wrote (1822)	11/8/1997 10:42:00 AM
From: arun gera	Respond to of 3506

David and Robert, Thanks for the interesting historical facts on car navigation. I was not aware of the efforts of Trimble, Ashtech, and Etak in the production of a car navigation system. Regarding Trimble having taken the right path in licensing or selling only boards/chips, it is becoming obvious from recent happenings such as Rockwell selling Neverlost to Orbital, Phillips selling a stake to to Mannesmann, and Sony's recent action. Is Sony withdrawing only the model mentioned or all models? Did the current model have DVD in it? Etak may be profiting more from internet and cartography market currently than car navigation. Etak provides mapping information to many Yellow Page sites on the web. Another market is providing more accurate maps than USGS to the GIS/mapping market. I have an interesting theory about that (theory only, little facts, more like six-degrees of separation). A few years ago, ETAK was owned by News Corp. As you know News Corp. is owned by Rupert Murdoch who is a good friend of Newt Gingrich. At the time, Newt attacked the USGS for performing functions that could be better accomplished by private companies (Etak was not mentioned). He wanted to shut down USGS or reduce its role considerably. Anyway, Newt's popularity did not last long. Newt's association with Rupert Murdoch was highlighted in press. Etak was sold to Sony and USGS survived. Arun