{"id":660809,"date":"2013-05-29T12:35:31","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T16:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=650097"},"modified":"2013-05-29T12:35:31","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T16:35:31","slug":"facebook-waze-acquisition-talks-break-down-which-big-tech-company-will-step-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/660809","title":{"rendered":"Facebook, Waze acquisition talks break down: which big tech company will step in?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone wants to know: which major tech company is going to acquire Waze, the crowdsourced mapping data company<\/a>? Well, new reports indicate that it likely won’t be Facebook, with AllThingsD reporting that talks between the two companies<\/a> broke down over whether the Israel-based startup would relocate to Menlo Park, Calif. among other issues.<\/p>\n

Earlier reports this month<\/a> said that Facebook was interested in acquiring the startup for as much as $1 billion, and as my colleauge Mathew Ingram noted<\/a>, the combination would have made a lot of sense for Facebook, which is slowly acquiring a good deal of user location data but doesn’t yet have a standalone mapping product of its own like Google or Apple.<\/p>\n

So if it looks like Facebook won’t be acquiring Waze, it raises the question as to who might be next in line. Mathew argued that Google would have been stupid<\/a> to let Facebook \u00a0make the move, since Google Maps is one of the company’s core products that users know and love — as evidenced by the Apple Maps debacle. Bloomberg reported this month that Google was interested in making a bid<\/a>, and it’s possible that talks with Facebook breaking down could give the older company an edge.<\/p>\n

But Apple would have an equally compelling interest in Waze, considering the still-lagging Apple Maps product, which CEO Tim Cook acknowledged Tuesday night<\/a>, \u201cWe screwed up there.\u201d There’s no question that Apple is still playing catch-up when it comes to building a robust mapping service, and Waze could certainly help further this goal. But is Apple going to make the move? Cook said Tuesday that Apple has not made a bid. But that certainly doesn’t mean the company won’t make one in the future.<\/p>\n

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