Garmin to Acquire Navigon

Endgadget's spin: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/14/garmin-to-purchase-navigo...

any benefits to the US stand alone market? I'm not familiar with Navigon but from the article it says they are mostly in Europe and do have so good US smartphone apps. I am glad about that but would like to see Garmin improve their US stand alone software and features.

I'd expect their expertise to help out in the next gen Garmin efforts, and to help broaden the product base.

Looks like a good move!

Smart move by Garmin, not so sure it's smart for us, though.

Is Navigon's iOS app gets Garmin's capabilities to do optimized routes, custom POIs - if that happened, I'd be happy - and if they got Garmin's Aussie Karen voice ported to the iOS app, I'd be ecstatic.

It's not really shocking that Garmin (rather than reinventing the wheel) bought out Navigon--TomTom has an iPhone version out and is reportedly working on an Android version, and Navigon is one of three or four really well-known and well-regarded cross-smartphone-platform GPS programs out there.

One thing I DO seriously hope for in the Garmin buyout--that Navigon will gain the ability to take Garmin native POI formats (Garmin CSVs and GPX files) as well as its own proprietary POI format. (This would put them in pretty direct competition with CoPilot (which does use TomTom .OV2 POIs, though as an undocumented feature in the smartphone versions) and iGo 8 (which can import POIs in KML format)...and probably give a leg up, especially seeing as there's more OUT there for Garmin in the first place!)

Navigon is one of the major players to supply GPS devices to European automobile manufacturers. That's a much easier money that selling portable GPS units against smart phones.

What's the last time any one bought a car equipped with GPS considered the features of that GPS units as part of the buying decision.

This article is interesting as well:

Garmin, Navigon and Dutch manufacturer TomTom, the European leader, have all seen their prospects hurt by the smartphone. Many consumers are forgoing purchases of handheld GPS devices and relying on applications in their phones instead.

That has meant a shrinking market for GPS device makers, which have begun to battle for contracts to provide the devices built into the dashboards of cars and trucks. Garmin also has found rich markets in devices made for boaters, bicyclists and people looking to incorporate navigation into their athletic training regimens.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/06/14/2950868/garmin-acquires...

made a good inexpensive gps for a while but dropped them. Still have one in my daughter's car and it was much better than comparable garmin models.

It's not too surprising that Garmin and others would target built in GPS systems for cars because they are a captive market and the captive market system has been very profitable for them in the past.

The problem is that the first time a BMW or Mercedes owner goes to update the maps on their in-dash unit and finds out that Garmin/Navigon wants $600, a lot of them are going to balk and look for alternatives like open-source smartphones that cater to the owner's needs instead of monopolistic proprietary models.

You'd think that the GPS companies would take a page from the music industry who fought (and continues to fight) the pay-by-the-song model that allows customers to only pay for the songs they want. The music industry made billions by putting out albums/CD's with 2-3 good songs and the other 70% was so-so filler that most people didn't want.

When MP3 technology came around that allowed customers to swap, trade, and download the music that they actually wanted instead of what the record industry told them they could have, people turned on the recording industry the moment they could and began illegal downloading showing no mercy to an industry that had held them captive for decades.

Even after the wildly successful iTunes model record company executives have been putting enormous pressure on Apple to double and even triple the per song price in order to get profit margins back up where they used to be, but they're ignoring the fact that people have choices now and they're not willing to go back to the proprietary/self-serving model from before.

Garmin and the other top two GPS companies could/should learn from this---people don't like it when you push self-serving proprietary/expensive nonsense upon them and the moment an alternative to your overpriced, crippled product emerges they will dump you like a wormy apple.....

NP

Except the market analysis from 2008-2015 claims that price is the big reason for the decline, as I have noted in the smartphone myths thread. I'm tempted to ask how you reconcile the sourced facts with the reporter's opinion, but would I actually get an answer, or another variation of "you don't get it"?

LOL really?

Of course it was very convenient for you not ignore my other post showing why Price is NOT THE REASON.

Price in fact, if anything, should show that GPS beating Smartphones. Because stand-alone PNDs are now costing $30 / 40 with no monthly fees, whereas smartphones cost $200 or more, with a monthly fee tied to a 2 year contract or more. If anyone were to argue about price, it would be that GPS should be kicking the pants off of smartphones!!!

I remember when my Nuvi C320 cost $390 in 2005. Nowadays I can buy a much superior GPS with more features, slimmer form factor, for 10% of that cost - $30 or $40. To say price is the reason GPS sales has declined is ABSURD!!!

If Price was the main reason, the GPS sales should be rocketing, with ever more units sold than EVER. That is not the case. Price is clearly NOT the reason why PND sales are down.

Perhaps the rest of the world doesn't get your argument. Perhaps 99.9999% of us are wrong, and you're the single person who's right on - price is the reason smartphones are beating standalone PND sales. LOL.

Firstly the cost of upgrading maps even for Mercedes and most other nav systems today is under $200 and falling rapidly as more and more cars are now equipped with built in nav. I have experience with my Mercedes and my Corvette nav units so can speak first hand as to what it costs. If you shop around you can find genuine map upgrades for half of that.

I think Garmin sees a huge market opening up in the factory built in sync systems that have been very successful for Ford and now GM is working hard to catch up with their own new Sync type systems. The convenience of marrying together of navigation, phone and entertainment into the vehicle itself is very alluring to a lot of buyers. Navigon is already a major player in the built in automotive nav system software so that gives Garmin a faster entrance into this rapidly growing segment.

More and more cars are now being equipped and advertised with these systems as standard equipment and not just the top of the line but the bottom of the line models. Ford Focus is a good example of how big a help the sync system can be for sales numbers.

I have had a number of Garmin units and also the in dash build in Kenwood 7" touchscreen that uses the Garmin software, a Droid X with Google maps and also a GM built in Nav.

If I had to choose just one unit today out of all of them to use on a daily basis it would be my built in GM nav. The one overriding feature for me is the integration into the other systems of the car and amongst those features the turn by turn information showing up in my cars heads up windshield display is number one.

I have tried and compared and tested all three types and would have to rate them in order of ease of usefulness and desirability for navigation duties on a daily basis as follows:

1. GM built in integrated navigation
2. My Garmin PND
3. My Droid X with Google maps

Like I have said before my Droid X is a great supplemental or back up nav device but in no way is it better than the other two for general day to day navigation duty. It is perfect for when I'm on foot or in another vehicle without nav but to me it is a jack of all trades but master of none other than as a phone.

The smartphone is a great all around useful tool kind of like a Swiss Army Knife but if I was going to be carving the Thanksgiving Turkey I would choose to use an Electric carving knife for that duty even though technically if would be possible to use the Swiss army knife's blade.

My father and mother have a Mercedes and a Lexus, they were quoted $575 and $450 at their respective dealers and that was just a few months ago. I'm not sure, but I'm assuming that the price includes the cost of the map updates themselves as well as the labor charge to do the work. Ever price tires at a Mercedes dealership? Not many people I know want to buy anything more than they absolutely have to from a dealership...

If the integrated systems will run open-source software like smartphones do, well that's becomes a VERY attractive option--as you said having everything integrated would/could be a plus. Personally, I would NEVER buy an integrated GPS system that I couldn't update and tweak myself--being dependent upon pricey dealership prices for anything beyond paid warranty work is not very practical in my book.

NP

[quote=ORnonprophet
My father and mother have a Mercedes and a Lexus, they were quoted $575 and $450 at their respective dealers and that was just a few months ago. I'm not sure, but I'm assuming that the price includes the cost of the map updates themselves as well as the labor charge to do the work. NP