Another day goes by, and it seems Google has put its hand up to make another acquisition. This time, Google seems to have won a mini bidding war for Israeli-based Waze. For those who’ve not heard of Waze before, it’s a maps and traffic company with a fairly popular cross-platform GPS application.
Israeli website Globes reports that Waze was being sought by Apple, Facebook and Google, with the Facebook deal falling through because of Facebook’s requirement that the Waze team relocate to California. Apple apparently never got to the stage of making an offer because the price was getting too high.
Google, it seems, was quite happy to rise to that high price, and with offices in Israel already, a history of purchasing into Israeli startups and an already-excellent mapping product that will only benefit from the added technical know-how from the Waze guys. The deal isn’t inked just yet, but it’s probably not far off.
[app]com.waze[/app]
I have try this apps couple time, but find that the map is really really bad, that it is almost unusable in Australia. Did I do something wrong?
How is every one else experience using Waze in Australia?
You probably didn’t do anything wrong. I used this app in Israel before Google maps directions was available there and it was extremely useful, mainly because of the huge number of users who share real time road info. This advantage was lost in Australia where no one else was using it.
I used to have it a while ago. Never seemed to tell me much. Maybe I should have another look…
I keep meaning to try this app out. It’s just been chilling on my phone. 😛