Nokia Considers Sale Of HERE Maps Business, Should Microsoft Buy It?
1 min. read
Published on
Share this article
Improve this guide
Read our disclosure page to find out how can you help MSPoweruser sustain the editorial team Read more
Bloomberg today reported that Nokia is exploring the sale of its HERE maps business as they are trying to focus on their wireless-network business. When Microsoft acquired Nokia’s Mobile division, they left HERE Maps business to Nokia. Nokia licenses HERE Maps data to companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo and most of the car makers.
According to Bloomberg, HERE is attracting interest from companies and private-equity firms and Nokia will expect more than 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) as its price. Map and local data is key to many online services and I’m sure it will attract many bidders. Companies like Facebook will be very interested and in my opinion Microsoft should buy it and allow it to run as an independent business. Bing Maps and many other Microsoft services are dependent on HERE Maps data. If any Microsoft rival like Apple acquires HERE, there is a huge risk of losing access to HERE Maps data.
What do you think?
Source: Reuters
