Waze is not your conventional
GPS, it displays little icons showing you a variety of road hazards,
destinations, congestion's and even where other Waze users are as you drive.
That said, crowd-sourcing isn't a panacea, Waze has shown for driving
conditions, it may be a necessity.
The software knows even if a
route is technically shorter, you could still end up taking just as long as you
would via the longer way on the highway, because of all the street lights. Waze
is actually better at the ETA than the competitors, whereas other GPS guess and
only to adjust it as the trip went on to eventually matches what Waze had said
all along.
Although Waze still doesn't
display the current road speed limit, and there's no 2D or 3D lane assistance,
it does provide colorful, animated traffic icons showing the current status and
delay times looked sharp on the map. Real-time traffic alerts worked well,
allowing for mid-course corrections.
So Why All the Noise?
Currently, Facebook is attempting
to acquire Waze; however, the success of this acquisition has been thrown a
wrench. Rumors emerged that Google is
about to drive forward with its own attempt to purchase the social mapping
application. With Microsoft and Apple also rumored to be interested which could
result in all-out bidding war between the tech world’s biggest players?
Bloomberg reports that Google’s
interest in Waze was only stirred when Facebook’s intentions first became clear
last week. The social media giant was reported to be in “late stage”
negotiations with Waze’s owners, only for the deal to come unstuck earlier this
week, apparently due to Facebook’s insistence that Waze move its operations to
the US. Now, it’s become clear that there are other forces in play.
According to Bloomberg:
“Waze is fielding expressions of interest from multiple parties and is
seeking more than $1 billion, said one of the people, who asked not to be
identified because the talks are private. The Palo Alto, California-based
startup might also remain independent, instead seeking to raise a round of
venture capital financing, the people said.”
Waze is highly valued, yet the
priorities of the bidding parties are different. Facebook sees a real asset, for it lacks its
own mapping service – something that would bolster more targeted advertising with Graph Search and other features.
For Microsoft and Apple meanwhile, the addition of Waze would certainly improve
their own mapping services, both of which are inferior to that of Google’s.
However, Google’s motivations for
buying Waze are to ground the ball. The
biggest advantage for Google is that by acquiring Waze, it would prevent its
competitors from being able to use its technology, thus ensuring that Google
Maps remains top dog. For this Waze
should be leery, for if Google does get its way, it’s likely that Waze would
disappear as a standalone service, with its best features simply being absorbed
into Google Maps. This would benefit Google’s mobile mapping app for sure, but
it seems unlikely that the search company would be able replicate Waze’s social
community or brand loyalty so easily – to the detriment of its current users.
What will be interesting is to
see if Microsoft and Apple get involved, if so, the final price could be well
over a billion dollars. Now for Waze
investors, this is a goldmine, but as for Waze’s users, it’s like being in an
ambulance in New York with no health insurance, you may soon be dumped on the
side of the road.
Source(s):
So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”
____________________________________________________________
About Rick Ricker
An IT professional with over 21 years experience in Information Security, wireless broadband, network and Infrastructure design, development, and support.
For more information, contact Rick at (800) 399-6085
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