With Google Maps Navigation causing ripples not only among Android users but in the share prices of Garmin, TomTom and other mapping providers, it seems some location-based services providers are coming out fighting. LaptopMag have been talking to Networks in Motion's (NIM) Steve Andler, VP of marketing at the company responsible for Verizon's VZ Navigator and the Gokivo iPhone app, and he's pulling no punches about his opinion of Google. Andler describes the idea of Android as being open as "a bunch of hooey", and even goes so far as to suggest that "Google is doing exactly what Microsoft did, which is, they integrate stuff into the core, leaving no room for anyone to innovate."
Of course, it's not surprising that Andler - and NIM - are frustrated, given the particular corner of software development they chose to carve out. Andler's core argument about PND software is that it requires more than a few voice prompts on top of a map.
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