HERE Acquisition By The Germans: Open Innovation On The Cards

It was announced earlier this week that the German trio of BMW, Daimler, and VW (Audi) will pay about 2.71 billion euros to acquire Nokia's mapping business, HERE. The consortium is planning to hire more software engineers to continue the path-breaking work done by HERE in the field of navigation and vehicle automation. While the deal value is much lower than the rumored $4 billion-plus that Nokia was asking for and the $7 billion-plus that Nokia paid to acquire Navteq, the idea of turning HERE into a platform that can be used across the auto community is novel and could change the way this industry does innovative development. HERE is the ideal choice for these automakers to prevent Google from gaining an upper hand in this market. The surprising part is the omission of VW from the roster of automakers considered (VW has just signed a 5-year contract with TomTom) by the consortium to provide HERE’s platform for free without a licensing fee that includes FCA, Renault, PSA, Ford, GM and Toyota. Despite all of these minute details, the promise from the consortium to not to interfere in HERE’s operational business and using it as an open platform will do greater good for this industry.