Nokia Buys Navteq, “Place” Becomes Key

I had written earlier about Navteq (Navteq: Bright Future If Managed well and Place and Location Services Growth Fuels Navteq).

Well, this morning, Nokia is announcing that they are acquiring Navteq for $8.1 Billion in cash. Navteq’s stock had risen steadily recently upon acquisition speculation. Since I last wrote about Navteq on August 2, the stock has gone from $65.99 to $79.27, and is trading at $76.79 right now.

Nokia has made a very smart move here, as the cell phone and the GPS device are bound to converge, adding further intensity to the convergence device movement. The growing importance of Place and Location data has also prompted me to enhance my Web 3.0 definition: Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS) + Place

Earlier, TeleAtlas was bought by GPS device company TomTom. The other GPS maker Garmin is still independent. Also, at this point, there is no other independent GIS company in the market.

Nokia is also doing exceedingly well, with tremendous market shares in the emerging markets. The company’s stock price has been scaling heights over the last year. The WSJ story is here.