PDD BRIEFS

By Staff On Jul 21 2008 - 6:00am

Nokia Closes Navteq Deal

Chicago — Nokia completed the acquisition of map maker Navteq for $8.1 million, as expected after the European Commission (EU) approved the deal earlier this month.

Navteq's sole GPS map rival, Tele Atlas, was previously purchased by TomTom for $4.3 billion, leaving the market without an independent map maker, at least for now. Facet Technologies of Eden Prarie, Minn., said it will offer GPS maps for the United States by the end of the year (see p. 46).

Nokia, based in Espoo, Finland, originally announced its intent to purchase Navteq last October stating that the deal would strengthen its location-based services for both the Internet and portable devices. Nokia also stated that Navteq's map data business would continue to be operationally independent but would become a Nokia Group company. Garmin is a key customer of Navteq maps.

Virgin Adds Curvy Arc

Warren, N.J. — Prepaid mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Virgin Mobile USA added a curvy flip-phone with red soft-touch casing to appeal to the two-thirds of Virgin subscribers who say they prefer simple phones that fill basic needs.

The Arc, made by UTStarcom, retails for $49 with VGA camera, Bluetooth, messaging, instant messaging and a Web browser. Talktime is 210 minutes with standby time of 14.5 days.

Virgin sells its phones through 40,000 retail outlets, and its prepaid cards are sold through more than 140,000 outlets.