Mapocalypse is HERE

The announcement on AndroidHeadlines.com that Nokia is hosting an event on the evening of July 28th in Los Angeles at the Hudson Loft has garnered widespread attention – particularly because of the slogan on the invite: “Nowhere: Now here.” Speculation hinges on the expectation of an announcement regarding the disposition of Nokia’s map division, HERE.

https://tinyurl.com/q845hpc - Nokia to Host VIP Event on July 28th

Nokia is expected to conclude its process of seeking a buyer for HERE at the end of July. Acquisition candidates have included Google, Uber, a consortium of German car makers, and private equity investors. Rumors have suggested the process was stimulated by the financial requirements of Nokia’s acquisition of Alcatel and/or by the concern of German auto makers as to preserving the independence of HERE.

The importance of HERE has grown in parallel with the increased interest in so-called self-driving/driverless/autonomous vehicles. It is ironic that this interest has been fueled by Google, which represents the antithesis of HERE.

While HERE will give you a map to own and use, Google will only let you access its map or borrow a piece of that map, which resides on its servers. HERE’s interest is in increasingly detailed and accurate map data suitable for navigation and to enable self-driving cars – SDCs. Google’s interest is in monitoring your movements and behavior to better target advertising messages and search results.

HEREin lies the problem for Google. The embedded map in the car IS the car’s browser. Every move the car makes is like a query to the map indicating the intention of the driver and the need to gather and interpret contextual information along the route.

To deliver this unique real-time browsing experience - which will ultimately come to characterize the self-driving car experience - requires the integration of on-board vehicle sensors with an on-board/embedded map and, sometimes, some cloud-based resources. But the bottom line is that a HERE (or TomTom) map in a car fulfills the same role as the browser does on a phone or a desktop or notebook computer.

Car makers, like BMW, have tried to introduce traditional browsers directly into cars with unsatisfactory results. The cost for a browsing experience in a car remains too high and the list results produced by most desktop or mobile browsers are not suited to the demands of the driving environment.

This was made especially obvious by Best Buy, seven years ago, when the company introduced its own connected dedicated navigation device with a search function. The list of results included sponsors at the very top – an unwelcome outcome for a driver.

Google Search is available in cars from several auto makers, including BMW. But its usefulness embedded in the dashboard of a car is undermined by the time wasted in making the necessary wireless connection. And car makers implementing Google Search have had to perform their own manipulation of the results to make them suitable for drivers. In other words, a driver will not want the normal results a regular Google Search will produce.

DeCarta was a provider of driver-oriented search, but its offering is beyond the reach of the auto industry now that the company is owned by Uber. Similarly, Uber was implicated early on as a potential HERE acquirer, but appears to have lost interest as the price tag has climbed above $3B.

Still, the importance of the browser will not have been lost on potential acquirers such as Google and Microsoft. Google and Microsoft have battled for years over the control of and access to browsing activity.

Both companies have been surprisingly mute through much of the speculation surrounding HERE’s potential sale. But the idea of HERE being acquired by Google does set off alarm bells for auto makers and raises the specter of HERE holding the auto industry hostage to a threat of a mapocalypse:

What if HERE were acquired by Google?  And the corollary:  What if HERE AND TomTom were acquired by Google?

It seems like such an obvious possibility and yet few are debating or considering it. It is almost as if the industry has collectively decided that it is simply out of the question – even though every auto executive knows very well it is a real possibility.

What would happen if Google bought HERE?

Today auto makers are more or less comfortable doing business with HERE knowing that an option is always ready to hand in TomTom. The current industry dynamic works well for the auto makers who can push TomTom or HERE around with overt or veiled threats to switch from one to the other if their requirements are not met. At the same time, TomTom and HERE can compete on price, quality and value.

The dynamic is working especially well as both HERE and TomTom have stepped up their map data gathering activities and continue to explore the integration of new forms of transportation content and information. Map quality and accuracy has improved dramatically in concert with and in support of autonomous vehicle developments.

Google buying HERE would drive the entire industry into the arms of TomTom while removing the leverage-ability of a map duopoly. Google buying both TomTom AND HERE would annihilate billions of dollars in research and development activity by car makers seeking to create a truly driver-oriented browsing experience intended to enhance safety.

This is the mapocalypse as far as car makers are concerned and explains the motivation behind the Audi-Benz-BMW bid for HERE.

Anything can happen between now and the end of July, including nothing. It is entirely possible that Nokia decides not to sell HERE. But a mapocalypse looms yet in the form of a Google acquisition of HERE. Hopefully, a week from today, we will be wiping our brow in relief, having averted the mapocalypse.