Magellan and Google buddy up for Maestro Elite 5340+GPRS
The GPS magicians at Magellan and the search wizards at Google have combined their relative (and also fantastical) talents to deliver the Maestro Elite 5340+GPRS, a GPS unit rocking some GPRS cellular capabilities.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's device-partnership strategy has been widening for months: in March 2007 it struck a deal with LG to put its search and services on handsets (LG Electronics and Google team up), part of a broader run of handset-maker tie-ups (Google's mobile maker deal chart), all against a backdrop of persistent Google Phone rumors out of Europe. The Maestro Elite 5340+GPRS extends that playbook beyond phones into dedicated GPS hardware.
For Magellan, the partnership is a way to answer the question every personal navigation device maker faced at the start of 2008: what does a standalone GPS unit offer once phones start doing location? Wiring GPRS cellular capability into the Maestro Elite and pairing it with Google is one answer — connected services rather than just maps on a screen. The story also traveled unusually wide for a gadget announcement, with Associated Press picking it up alongside Engadget.
First-order effects
- Magellan gains a differentiator over rival GPS makers: a Maestro Elite unit that can pull live data over GPRS rather than relying solely on preloaded maps.
- Google gets another distribution surface for its search and services outside the browser and the handset, extending the LG-style partner model to navigation devices.
Second-order effects
- Competing PND vendors face pressure to add cellular connectivity of their own or justify why their devices remain offline, shifting competition from map quality toward data plans and service bundles.
- Carriers gain a new class of connected-device customer as GPS units begin consuming cellular bandwidth, opening a second front beyond handsets.
Third-order effects
- If connected GPS becomes table stakes, the standalone navigation device drifts toward being a carrier-subsidized endpoint — the same convergence pressure that has phone makers absorbing camera and music-player functions.
- The pattern points toward location becoming a software-and-services layer licensed across device categories, with Google positioned as the default provider wherever a partner needs one.
The trend: Google is stitching itself into consumer hardware through per-category partner deals — handsets first, now navigation devices — ahead of any first-party device of its own.