Maps become the forefront of mobile OS and heroes gather

December 31, Beijing time, the road to the future of mobility may be a map.

Maps can be used not only to navigate, but also to find nearby parking spots. The war surrounding moving maps will ultimately determine whether companies can provide the most sophisticated tools and answer a series of questions raised by users on mobile devices. It will be an important driver of the tech giant stocks, such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook, and decide who owns the future dominant mobile platform.

Apple launched maps to counter Google, and users were furious. They eventually chose their favorite products, which emphasized the importance of smartphone "discovery" tools. Over time, these tools will be more complex and answer more questions than just positioning.

When Google launched a map for the iPhone, it proved its superiority. Its maps are faster and more accurate than Apple products. Google Maps also has a massive corporate directory and related features such as Zagat restaurant reviews and the company's "Street View" service.

In addition, Google has further penetrated into the new mobile world by introducing Google Now, a prediction tool to Android. Users can let Google tools get their location, email, calendar information. In return, Google Now can provide answers before users can answer questions.

A flight boarding pass can be seen in the user's mailbox. It can also alert the user if the aircraft is delayed. In the user's calendar, you can see the schedule of the meeting, you can check the traffic status, if the traffic jam is serious, it will remind the user to leave early. It sounds scary. But as the tools become more sophisticated, the benefits it brings out will be more than the privacy concerns of most users.

Apple does not have such complicated tools. At the same time, in their own iPhone map applications, data mostly comes from external companies, which lags behind Google. But Apple may authorize more data to catch up.

Apple is in preliminary discussions with Foursquare Labs to integrate the startup’s data into Apple’s maps. Foursquare has data on a large number of local sites, and it also has a small social network that Apple may use to enhance maps.

In fact, social information may be extremely valuable to mobile platforms. Facebook has the most information, it also uses information for local discovery tools, and recently it launched its own mobile application. It gets information from millions of local businesses from Facebook pages. What's even more interesting is that Facebook can tell you which companies your friends like most. It can provide "local word marketing" for local businesses, which brings special value.

The potential value of such mobile applications can be extremely large. According to BIA Kelsey data, in 2006, before the Internet was attacked, the US printed yellow page business reached a peak of US$14.5 billion. As mobile applications become more and more equal to "find tools," discovery tools may take over the previous Yellow Pages market, and it may win back the previous Yellow Pages revenue.

The stakes are getting higher and higher. In the next five years, users can expect Apple Siri or Google Voice Search to answer more complex questions. This technology, Microsoft and RIM may have to strengthen, so as to obtain a clear share in smart phones.

It looks like Google is ready. As a search company, it has huge data assets, a large number of engineers, and can develop algorithmic utilization data. It also has a lot of cash to buy traditional data assets such as Zagat and ITA Software.

Apple does not seem to develop its own search engine. Due to the popularity of the iPhone and iPad, Apple can benefit from developers, developers develop programs for the Apple platform. Google Google’s new map is better than Google’s Android map. But third-party programs will not allow Google to control its own destiny. They will feel pressure to launch their own services. Apple has $121 billion in cash and can easily increase its investment in data.

The starting point may be the acquisition of TomTom. This is a map technology company that has already contributed to Apple's maps. In 2008, it merged with Tele Atlas and the transaction amounted to US$4.5 billion. At that time, only two companies were able to provide navigational digital maps. Another belongs to Nokia, which is called Navteq, which was acquired by Nokia in 2008 for 8 billion US dollars.

Since then, most smartphones have been able to meet navigation-navigation-device needs, which has dropped TomTom's corporate value to $1 billion. For Apple, the purchase amount is not large, it can use offshore funds to acquire the Dutch company.

There are also some assets that may be acquired by Apple. In addition to Foursquare and Yelp, its app is widely used by users because it has thousands of corporate reviews. Yelp's data has been used to strengthen the Siri service.

If the mobile platforms of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook are brilliant, they will be more stressful and more eager for data differentiation.