[OSM-talk] Garmin stocks falls on mapping deal

David Earl david at frankieandshadow.com
Wed Oct 3 17:36:33 BST 2007


On 03/10/2007 16:02, John McKerrell wrote:
> Michael T. Jones, chief technologist of Google Earth, Maps and Local,  
> says the company never considered buying Navteq. Instead, Google  
> could simply recreate the data far more cheaply by tapping the  
> mapmaking skills of its hundreds of millions of users — a wiki of  
> maps, he suggests.
> 
> http://www.forbes.com/wireless/2007/10/02/nokia-navteq-deal-tech-wire- 
> cz_bu_1002technokia.html
> 
> I wonder if someone injected $8.1 billion into OSM, how long it would  
> take us to map the world.

For the UK only, I reckon $10 million would do it...

A 3D map based on Google Earth recently failed to get a flat rate OS web 
license - 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/16/guardianweeklytechnologysection.freeourdata 

Of course, being a derived work, they're stuck now; but if Google (I say 
Google because it was they who were in the middle in the problem above, 
but it equally applies to any other companies of course) was prepared to 
spend a rather small sum of money in their terms to employ freelance 
mappers to do the remainder of the UK systematically, they would then 
have a data source which is untainted and could avoid a least some such 
problems in the future. Of course, they could spend the money and on 
making their own proprietary data as well, but as AND have demonstrated, 
that's not where they the value lies any more.

For the UK, say 20,000 person-days (1,000 head of population takes 2 
hours, plus travelling time) at 150 pounds/day, doubled to cover 
on-costs, expenses (worn out bikes, petrol, rail fares, computer costs 
contribution), that's £6 million / $12 million to do the UK. Actually, a 
substantial part is done, so let's take that down to $10 million. Not 
exactly petty cash, but not that much for the value Google cold get from 
it, and a tiny investment for Google - and how much are their OS 
licensing fees currently anyway? And the detail could be better too: 
cycle and urban footpaths etc. What if several of the internet mapping 
providers with an interest in the UK got together to fund this - $3.5 
million each for 3 companies? It starts to sound like a really good 
investment to me.

100 people could do it full time in a year. 200 half time.

It'll get done anyway, but by paying for it, it would ensure a 
systematic comprehensive approach which is only in evidence in some 
areas at present, in a reasonable time frame.

I think this would be a very shrewd move on the part of Google or/and 
Multimap and/or others.

The problem might be that the challenge to OS dominance would be so 
strong that OS would bend under the pressure and start making major 
concessions on licensing, undermining the investment.

David





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