about-electronics.eu

CNNMoney: The European Commission is expected to approve personal navigation device manufacturer TomTom NV’s proposed acquisition of map maker Tele Atlas NV and open an in-depth inquiry into Finnish mobile telecoms group Nokia Oyj’s planned buy of digital map maker Navteq Corp.

A legal source told Thomson Financial News that the TomTom/Tele Atlas deal should be cleared on or before the deadline of May 5, even though there are ‘clearly vertical competition concerns’.

The commission opened an in-depth inquiry into the deal in November after its initial market investigation indicated that the proposed merger raised serious doubts with regard to vertical competition concerns. Since then, the commission extended the deadline for the inquiry at the parties’ request.

‘This seems to be a concentrated market at upstream level and access to data will be a key issue in terms of remedies,’ the source said.

‘The commission obviously has suggested serious concerns (about the deal) but they should be addressable through making data available to third parties.’
The source said the key factor in negotiations over potential remedies will be assessing how to preserve the companies’ value.

read more

NaviGadget: Pioneer AVIC-F500BT – now known as NavGate 500 was made official last Friday.

One of the main innovations with NavGate 500 is the size of the screen measuring 5.8″ (14,7cm) - which we believe is a record as far as portable nav systems go. NavGate will have 800×480 pixel (WVGA) resolution, just like HP iPAQ 310, and Garmin Nuvi 5000.

NavGate 500 integrates a hands free Bluetooth kit from Parrot, an RDS/TMC module for traffic information, voice commands, a processor running at 600 MHz and of the course the SiRF StarIII GPS chip.

It will ship with maps from TeleAtlas covering 30 European countries including Greece, Poland, the Czech republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania and Turkey.

Another feature with NavGate 500 will be the ability to connect to your car stereo through Mosfet 50 amplifier which should provide a very good sound quality. Also AV, USB port, iPod connection, and an SD card slot are standard with NavGate 500 allowing you to connect various external audio and video devices.

Pioneer NavGate 500 will hit the market in May and will sell for 699 €.

read more

The Register: Satnav hardware heavyweight Garmin has gone head to head with rival TomTom in a bidding war for control of Dutch map data provider TeleAtlas.

Reuters reports that Garmin has entered the lists hoping to win the favour of TeleAtlas with an offer of €24.50 per share, topping TomTom by 15 per cent. TomTom offered €21.25/share in July.

Garmin said its offer would be launched on 4 December, just as TomTom’s is set to expire, and specified that the deal was only good in the event of more than two-thirds of TeleAtlas being for sale. The US bidders said financing was lined up.

Garmin’s €24.50 share price values TeleAtlas at €1.8bn in total.

The satnav/mapping market has seen consolidation recently, with Nokia (whose latest smartphones include GPS) buying Navteq – TeleAtlas’ main competitor in the mapping database biz – for $8.1bn. Satnav-enabled devices are sometimes sold without any onboard map information initially, as its cost is typically more signifcant than that of the receiver hardware itself.

read more

Silicon.Com: This is one of the vans used by mapping company Tele Atlas to gather images and data that eventually ends up on numerous navigation devices.

The Dutch company is one of two major European mapping organisations – the other being Navteq – that provide maps to sat-nav manufacturers.

Customers include Google, Mercedes Benz, Navman, Nokia, Tom Tom, Via Michelin and Pioneer.

As part of the mapping process the company uses a fleet of 22 vans to map individual streets and landmarks across Europe.

More images here.

read more