【聯合報／By MARK SCOTT／王麗娟譯】
Nokia May Alter Its Course, With Maps
BERLIN — For the first time in more than three decades, Nokia faces the future without being a player in the global phone business. On April 25, the company completed the sale of its beleaguered handset business to Microsoft for $7.5 billion.
The deal puts a spotlight on what remains of Nokia, which includes the Finnish company’s mobile networking business and a research and intellectual property unit. But it is Nokia’s efforts to map the entire world digitally that could prove to be the company’s hidden gem — or at least emerge as a compelling, multibillion- dollar takeover target.
Nokia’s goal with its mapping system, known as Here and developed in Berlin, is simple but ambitious: to build the world’s most detailed and up-to-date digital maps.
In smartphones, Here is surpassed by Google Maps, which has an estimated one billion mobile users and is aided by being standard issue on phones using Google’s Android operating system. Here, which is the default mapping application on Windows phones, has only about 100 million smartphone users.
In automobile mapping, however, Here dominates, with more than 80 percent of the global market for built-in car navigation systems.
Nokia contends that its mapping products, which are updated 2.7 million times a day, are more accurate than its rivals’ offerings and that its ability to customize its maps sets Nokia apart.
Google counters that it makes tens of thousands of changes to its maps daily and that it uses complex algorithms and external information from entities such as the United States Census Bureau to build maps for 198 countries.
While rivals like Apple have tried to break into the global mapping business, they have so far been largely unsuccessful.
“Mapping is an expensive business,” said Annette Zimmermann, an analyst at the technology research company Gartner in Munich. “If you haven’t already built what these guys have built, it doesn’t make sense to start now.”
Despite the strong position, though, Nokia’s mapping unit last year generated only 7 percent, or $1.2 billion, of the company’s total revenue, excluding its handset unit, according to corporate filings.
The division also reported an operating loss of $212 million over the same period, as the company continued to invest in the mapping operation, which has 6,000 employees, or around 11 percent of Nokia’s remaining work force of 55,000. In addition to its auto clients, Nokia licenses Here to companies like Microsoft, for its Bing search engine; Amazon, for the Kindle Fire tablet; and Yahoo for its Flickr photo service. FedEx uses Here mapping data to manage its delivery trucks worldwide.
There is talk that Nokia could decide either to sell or to spin off the division, so the company can focus on its core mobile networking business. The networking unit, which manufactures cellphone towers and other telecommunications hardware for carriers, will generate almost 90 percent of the company’s annual revenue. That means Here might be more valuable to someone else than to Nokia.
“There are only a few mapping businesses in the world,” said Ehud Gelblum, a Citigroup analyst. “It’s a valuable asset.”
For now, at least, Here continues to be important to Nokia.
“There are a lot of applications for what we’re doing,” said Reno Marioni, an American who runs Nokia’s crowd-mapping business, which feeds changes made by users into the company’s products. “Mapping the world is a pretty big thing.”
中譯
這是三十多年來諾基亞首次在展望未來時，已不再是全球手機業的玩家。該公司4月25日以75億美元將陷入困境的手機業務賣給微軟。
這筆交易將焦點轉向諾基亞的剩餘部門，包括這家芬蘭公司的行動網絡業務和一支研究與智慧財產權單位。不過，諾基亞繪製全世界地圖的努力，可能才是公司隱藏的寶石，至少可以成為引人注目、價值數十億美元的收購目標。
名為「這裡」，於柏林開發的諾基亞地圖系統，目標雖簡單卻野心勃勃：打造全球最詳盡、資料最新的數位地圖。
在手機界，谷歌的「地圖」超越「這裡」，「地圖」估計用戶約10億，部分拜它是谷歌安卓作業系統手機標準配備應用程式所賜。「這裏」則是視窗手機預設的地圖應用程式，用戶約僅1億。
不過，在汽車地圖界，「這裡」則是霸主，汽車內建導航系統的全球市占率逾八成。
諾基亞表示，它的地圖產品每天更新270萬次，比對手的產品準確，而客製化的能力更讓諾基亞的地圖獨占鰲頭。
谷歌辯稱每天也為「地圖」做數萬筆更新，使用複雜的運算法與來自美國人口普查局等機構的外部資訊，為198國打造地圖。
「蘋果」等對手也曾試圖闖入全球地圖市場，但迄今大致失敗。
技術分析公司「顧能公司」在慕尼黑的分析師安妮特‧齊默曼說：「地圖繪製是很花錢的事業。如果你沒有這些人已經打好的基礎，現在才開始不是合理投資。」
儘管地位強大，根據公司的財報，諾基亞地圖部門去年營收僅占公司手機部門之外總營收的7%，即12億美元。
同一時期，因公司持續投資地圖營運，地圖部門提報營運虧損2億1200萬美元。地圖部門有員工6000人，約占諾基亞剩餘工作人力5萬5000人的11%。除了汽車業客戶，諾基亞也授權微軟的Bing搜索引擎、亞馬遜的Kindle Fire平板電腦、雅虎的Flickr照片服務使用他們的地圖系統。聯邦快遞使用「這裡」的地圖資料，管理在世界各地的送貨卡車。
有人說諾基亞可能決定出售或分拆地圖部門，以便專注於核心的行動網絡業務。該網絡單位主要替通訊業者製造手機基地台與其他電信硬體。行動網絡業務將占公司年營收近9成。這意味「這裡」對別人可能比對諾基亞更有價值。
花旗集團分析師蓋布倫說：「世上地圖事業不多，它是寶貴的財富。」
至少就目前而言，「這裡」對諾基亞仍很重要。
經營諾基亞群眾外包製作地圖業務（由用戶將地圖變更傳送進公司產品）的美國人馬里歐尼說：「我們的工作關乎許多應用程式，為全球繪製地圖是件大工程。」
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