The previous post sheds some light on the history of routable Garmin maps from openstreetmap data. Being a manager in the IT business, the whole issue rises another interesting question: Does openstreetmap data attack Garmin’s effort to make a business of their maps?
I once purchased a map for my eTrex Venture Cx. After the purchase, the map was dongled to the serial number of my individual unit. Additionally, my address data was transferred to the US, so the map was not only dongled to an individual device, but also to an individual person.
Later, I purchased a better Garmin device, a GPSMap 60Cx. I intended to sell the eTrex and to use my map license with the new device. I contacted Garmin to reregister the map with the new device, unregistering it from the eTrex. Unfortunately, Garmin denied to do so. I was told that I should sell the eTrex with the map and to purchase a new license. Additionally, I was told that the purchaser had to be registered with Garmin to unregister the map from my name. I do not know if this registering process triggered some extra costs. Anyway, Garmin left a lot of FUD concerning the sale, putting some severe disadvantages on my side. On a side note, I also doubt that Garmin’s behaviour was compatible with local law, especially data privacy issues.
Garmin seems to use NAVTEQ data (they recently lost a bidding for Teleatlas), and I assume that NAVTEQ had an impact on Garmin’s contracts. Of course Garmin need to protect their data from being wildly copied, and they need to control who is using the data and how. Nevertheless I guess that Garmin could have done better. They sell excellent devices regarding the hard- and firmware. But the aforementioned behaviour is capable of repelling customers, even those who are otherwise pleased with their products.
Garmin might have had a major impact on the success of openstretmap.org. Anyone who owns a Garmin device will sooner or later get in touch with the project. Some of them surely just want to avoid to spend any money on maps for their Garmins. But I guess that a significant amount of people, willing to pay for map data, just feel disappointed with Garmin’s behaviour (and, BTW, with the quality of their map data). Of course Garmin need to squeeze out as much of income as possible of their map products. But maybe they have overstretched the thumbscrews, which leads to a faster success of openstreetmap.org and to less sales of their map data.
What I try to learn of the whole issue for my “daytime job”:
- Treat your customers as fair partners, at least until they prove the opposite.
- Protect your software products and control their usage.
- Do the latter one unobtrusive, avoiding disadvantages for paying customers.
It’s likely that Garmin lost some sales due to the existence of openstreetmap.org. The other way around, I guess that the situation will change the business of Garmin. They will either offer maps less expensive, in better quality and more user friendly, or even sell openstreetmap data as maps for their devices. The latter one might sound unimaginably. But since TeleAtlas belongs to TomTom and NAVTEQ belongs to Nokia, there’s no independent data provider left who has much interest to provide data to Garmin. The geodata market changes a lot these days, and so will its players.
