With iOS 6, Apple is finally ditching Google as a maps partner and releasing their own custom maps solution, built upon partnerships with companies like TomTom and using their own technology acquired from companies like C3.
How costly would it be for Apple to compete with Google Maps head-on, though, by building their own mapping system from the ground-up without any outside deals? More than you might think: in fact, Apple might have to increases its global workforce by 50%.
Nicolas Carlson at Business Insider writes:
After speaking with a pair of Googlers about this, we wonder if Apple may have bitten off more than it can chew.
One big reason: Google has 1,100 full time employees and 6,000 contractors working on its mapping products. Those 7,000 people do all sorts of granular work.
One source reminds us Google has “street view drivers, people flying planes, people drawing maps, people correcting listings, and people building new products.”
Excluding its retail army, Apple only has 13,000 employees in total.
Of course, Google is in the business of selling its Maps data to all sorts of customers, where as Apple’s primary interest is in having the best maps app for the iPhone and iPad. Apple doesn’t necessarily need to do as much as Google to compete in this regard: they can have the best maps app in mobile, not necessarily the most thorough mapping business.
Source: Business Insider
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
5 responses to “Can Apple Beat Google’s Mapping Army?”
Yet, will all those minions they still piss’d their pants when Apple came out with their own mapping tech. #quality over quantity all day everyday!
who cares? they aren’t doing it so it is irrelevant.
umm.. he was referring to google being the pant pissers. calm down mate..
I think Google is becoming so much commercial in all areas including their mapping also,in that case this good initiation by Apple.
yeah great Google has 1100 employees maintaining the mapping solution. There is a very simple dilemma in all business that ironically BI is forgetting it’s called “Make of Buy” and clearly Apple believes that in this case make applies to some aspects while buy to others. Google, doesn’t since they are in the information control game. And that is all fine and I frankly think that Apple is in a position to provide a better product than Google does. Apple has the choice of data providers for maps while Google has to use their own data. Google’s data is good, but it is not the best especially if you aggregate multiple data sources. So don’t start writing Apple off just yet. Not to mention that with a cash reserve like theirs and revenues stream from iOS devices at well over 50% margin, they can more than afford to take a small hit on the cost of the mapping solution. And if anything, it will finally provide a strong competition for Google Maps which is always good for the consumer.