History
For more than a decade Nokia has built its mapping and location business by acquiring location technology and know-how. It all began in 2001 as Smart2Go, a generic 3D-map interface for access to tourist information on mobile terminals. It was developed by an EU consortium named TellMaris. Nokia gained the rights to the software when it acquired Berlin-based route planning software company gate 5 in August 2006, which has become the cornerstone for the company’s mapping business. It then made the Smart2Go application free to download.
In October 2007 Nokia acquired the Chicago-based company NAVTEQ, which was the largest maker of automotive grade map data used in car navigation equipment. That acquisition brought Nokia 25 years of experience in creating automotive grade content and a deep footprint in the automotive industry.
In 2008 Nokia picked up geo social networking site Plazes and the following year it bought mobile applications developer bit-side, social location pioneer Plum, and social travel service Dopplr. In 2010 it acquired Metacarta a leading enterprise local search service used by security and military.
In April 2011, Nokia released a beta version of 3D maps that covered 20 cities in the world. By August 2011, the coverage has expanded to 23 cities and in 2012 Nokia bought earthmine, which specializes in street level 3D image capture.
In May 2011, Ovi Maps was renamed to Nokia Maps when Nokia streamlined its services offering under the head brand.
In October 2011 Maps & Drive for Windows Phone 7 (Mango) has been announced, which was available on Nokia Lumia phones (710, 800 and in 2012 the 900). However major features such as off-line routing and text-to-speech navigation of street names, compared to the Symbian version, were absent. These features were eventually brought over to the Windows Phone platform in 2012.
On November 13, 2012 Nokia announced it would rebrand its location offering as Here to highlight its vision for the future of location based services and its belief in the importance of mapping.
Read more about this topic: Nokia Maps
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