> Industrial News > News   Garmin Signs Long-Term Agreement with Navteq, Drops Offer for Tele Atlas   Navteq and Garmin today announced the completion of a long-term agreement that provides Garmin access to Navteq map data through 2015 with an option to continue through 2019. Garmin also announced today that in light of these developments it does not intend to pursue its offer for Tele Atlas N.V. TomTom and Tele Atlas said in a joint press release Monday that TomTom is making the offer, subject to the terms and restrictions contained in the offer memorandum dated 18 November 2007, delivered at a cash amount of EUR 30.00.  Affected by the action of Garmin, the price for TomTom to purchase Tele Atlas rises from EUR 2 billion in July to current EUR 2.9 billion.  Comment: TomTom and Garmin contend for Tele Atlas at any cost, from 2 billion euroes to 2.9 billion euroes. Their actions together with Nokia’s acquisition of Navteq indicate that the global navigation and LBS industries will soon come to a highly-developing stage and that hardware giants will ascend from the stage of product & brand competition to the stage of service competition. Under this background, the strategic significance of digital map providers has drawn greatest-ever attention. Hardware giants expect, by merging or acquiring digital map providers, to get persistent cost advantages, provide customers with better services than competitors, restrict development of competitors, and improve product & service quality through interaction between terminals and maps. The strategic significance of map providers in China is also increasing but the development trend may be totally different from that in Europe and U.S.   Time:2008-02-05 Source:NaviForum Shanghai News Center Relative