Last year Nokia invested in the navigation sector by purchasing the Berlin based navigation software compamy Gate5. Although not one of the ‘High Street’ names the Gate5 smart2go software has been included in a lot of OEM PND systems.
The buy-out of Gate5 indicated that Nokia was taking a very serious attitude to navigation. As the Nokia devices are the World’s most prolific handhelds it bodes well for navigation in general.
Also with one of the main manufacturers of handsets entering a market sector where data costs can be an issue it remains to be seen if the network providers start to come up with some well thought out unlimited roaming packages for data.
The announcement made by Nokia yesterday allows users with compatible devices to download free software and mapping.
Additional Content
Another mechanism for funding the free application is charging for other additional content. Currently apart from the turn by turn navigation smart2go provide City Guides. From the looks of the screenshots they have deals with a number of reputable companies providing a good selection of guides.
Conclusion
Nokia seem to have entered the SatNav market with an explosion. The coverage that is being offered in terms of navigable mapping far exceeds any other single company’s offering. smart2go’s claim of overall mapping (my interpretation of ‘in which countries can I use smart2go) is incredible and includes many countries in Africa and Oceania that I have never considered before.
As this has the Nokia brand and marketing backing it cannot fail to be a success, but my only concern is about the pricing model. Hopefully I can investigate this next week at 3GSM.
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