Quote from Neodude:
This market isn't going to grow exponentially like the personal computer market. People use navigation in their cars only when they are going on long road trips or when they are going to a place they haven't visited before, but most people use their cars to get to work and go shopping. These are routine places that don't need NAV.
Sorry, but you don't see the wood from the trees!
nav systems won't serve to lead you to a certain destination, but they will accompany and assist you - wether in your car or as pedestrian.
Future nav systems will warn you of dangerous spots, of weather situations (e.g. fog) ahead or of traffic jams. DaimlerChrysler is developing a function to warn following traffic after accidents and even after immediate braking, which indicates dangerous situations.
TATL has already integrated speed limit information for German highways in their database and newer nav systems warn you when you break the limit.
Even the position of stationary speed traps are already available as addon (provided by third-parties).
Navigation systems are not about guidance anymore, but about security!
Entering this industry doesn't have high barriers. [...]
and purchase map data or get it for almost next to nothing from state agencies.
This is complete mischief!
The map data, which TATL and NVT have, would cost estimated $ 500 mio to create, which I would call a very high barrier and there is no state agency, that has such detailed complete maps.
TATL and NVT's maps contain not only the position of a road, but every single lane, information about road quality and average traffic density and the time it takes to pass the road. Further you need to know where oneways are and much much more
(see: http://www.theautochannel.com/N/news/2004/10/20/258073.html?{LF}&)! And not to forget millions of socalled points of interest, like gas stations, hotels, hospitals etc.
Your view on this is very naive.
The map database of NVT and TATL can't be compared with any existent map. If your car nav system had only the official state maps, it would only be able of calculating the shortest route and guide you through side streets.
Setting up this databases has cost millions and took more than a decade and is way more complicated than you imagine!
You also forget the other use for these maps except for navigation applications.
Parcel services and hauliers can calculate their delivery routes much more efficently with this map data. Further fleet managment will become much more comfortable.
Not to forget the use for 911-services
(see: http://home.businesswire.com/portal...d=news_view&newsId=20041025005814&newsLang=en)
Also all the maps on all the major web portals are based either on NVT or TATL's maps.
When you still don't understand the great moment of this technology, just have a look at the Google news search:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=teleatlas
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=teleatlas
After yesterday's and today's unintelligible price loss of NVT and TATL, NVT has recovered again and TATL will do in the next days. So tomorrow will be an opportunity to get on the train (far) northwards.
see
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TATL.DE&d=t
and also see this forecast
http://www.happyyuppie.com/cgi-bin/de/search.pl?isin=NL0000233948&typnr=4
). Entering this industry doesn't have high barriers. The GPS signal is free and the rest of the hardware is off the shelf. The only thing a company has to do to enter this field is write the software and purchase map data or get it for almost next to nothing from state agencies.