Thinking of map makers, you can't help but feel sorry for the guys driving around in their trucks mapping out the roads (and still getting it wrong on the I-80, the highway between San Francisco and Salt Lake City). But today's news that Nokia paid $7.7bn for Navteq makes those truck drives a bit more interesting.

You can't view this deal without taking into consideration that TomTom in July agreed to acquire TeleAtlas for $2.5bn.

TeleAtlas and Navteq quite simply are the digital mapping industry. Nobody else comes even close to their data collection. Look in the bottom of your maps for Google, Yahoo, MSN or Mapquest, and you'll see that they are provided by one of these two companies.

02 Oct 2007

Both TomTom and Nokia believe that owning the maps will allow them to roll out new services at a much faster rate. TomTom for instance is already using feedback from mobile phones to update its maps and gather traffic information. The firm also is betting big time on collecting user generated content around its maps, think of restaurant reviews or businesses that aren't listed.

The big question becomes why Microsoft, Google or Yahoo didn't pull out there check books here. Were they just sleeping, or are TomTom and Nokia seeing something that the others aren't?