Earlier this month, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (HEL:NOK1V), a giant Finnish smartphone maker, announced its plan to acquire a 3D map-technology maker Earthmine, to help expand its mapping tools under a new brand name, in order to be able to compete against big rivals like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL).
Today, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (HEL:NOK1V) has completed its acquisition, as announced, taking over a 3D street level imaging specialist to further enhance its digital mapping service.
The Earthmine purchase, according to Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (HEL:NOK1V), is re-branded as ‘HERE‘, as a part of a move to make its mapping technology available across multiple operating systems and mobile screens.
In their statement today, Nokia addresses that, “Earthmine’s reality capture and processing technologies will become integral parts of the 3D map making capabilities of Here,”. While executing their plan to acquire the 3D digital mapping technology maker, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop states that, “There are two big assets, really good assets, when it relates to location-based services in the world and we have one of them”.
Sharing views on their acquisition, John Ristevski, co-CEO of Earthmine, comments in a statement that: “We are very excited to be joining Nokia – a company with a huge presence and vision in mapping. We could not hope for a better place to fulfill and accelerate our mission of indexing the world in 3D.”
No terms of the acquisition have yet been disclosed, but the transaction has been anticipated to conclude by the end of this year.
It appears that Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) has planned to unleash the re-branding of its mapping technology just when the current surge in the mapping space has picked up a rapid pace in the technology market. By making its mapping technology available across multiple platforms and to competitive handsets, Nokia aims to develop a certain level for HERE in the market.
A mobile version of Nokia’s re-branded HERE will include offline use, voice guidance, and public transport information, and will be available for use in about two weeks in Apple’s App Store.
Announcing a strategic partnership with Mozilla, the Finnish vendor has also decided to launch a mobile Internet version of HERE for its new Firefox operation system in 2013.
