Mapping road to success

CHICAGO

Getting lost is getting rarer nowadays, and any yahoo with a keyboard or a GPS device can find precise directions or pinpoint the location of an out-of-town landmark.

Now drivers hooked on digital maps are looking for more than streets and turns. They want accurate and up-to-date points of interest such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, theme parks and more.

For digital mapmakers like Navteq Corp., it's up to road teams like Ann McNeil and Rich Joyce to deliver.

Like luxury-class explorers, the geographic analysts cruise streets and roads in a tech-laden sport utility vehicle outfitted with a satellite tracking computer, electronic clipboard and rooftop cameras.

"Our customers are wanting more and more information," said Ms. McNeil, who has driven hundreds of thousands of miles in a decade at Navteq. "We're expanding all the time."

It's all part of a race with Dutch rival Tele Atlas NV to chart the world more accurately and combine maps with other relevant data.

A pioneer of the digital map business, Navteq produces the maps and software found in automobile navigation systems, portable navigation devices made by Garmin Ltd. and other companies, and Internet map sites like AOL's MapQuest, Google Inc.'s Google Maps and Yahoo Inc.'s Yahoo Maps.

Navteq is the Rand McNally of the 21st century, said Colorado map industry consultant Henry Poirot, and the rapid growth may be just beginning.

Thanks to the Global Positioning System and technology advancements, Navteq is fine-tuning ways to let consumers use a phone or other hand-held device to track their dogs, find where to jog in another city, learn how many calories they will burn doing it, learn where the nearest 24-hour gas stations are and see current traffic and weather conditions. Tele Atlas has its own projects under way.

"There's a lot of competition going on," said Thilo Koslowski, an analyst for Gartner Inc. "Both companies are trying to show that their data is better, by being innovative in gathering more detailed information."

The mapping duel heated up last week with the announcement that Tele Atlas agreed to a $2.6 billion acquisition by TomTom NV, the world's largest maker of personal navigation devices.

That should make the combined European company a more formidable foe, but Navteq's stock soared. Analysts said TomTom's competitors, such as Garmin, may go to the Chicago company for their maps rather than buy from a rival.

Navteq would like to improve its market share, which already includes most of the Internet mapping market and a split of the hand-held device market with Tele Atlas.

Its European rival drives the roads, too. The two companies' teams even occasionally spot each other covering the same turf.

The biggest threat facing the two competitors may be user-generated map content — a mapping equivalent of YouTube.

Google also could be a rival. The Internet search leader is deep into research, development and even acquisitions related to its mapping services, which include Google Earth as well as Google Maps.

Navteq has shown a knack for adapting to changing technology.

The company was created in 1985 as Navigation Technologies, focusing on kiosks at car-rental agencies and hotels where patrons could print out directions and maps for chosen addresses. Dutch conglomerate Philips Electronics became its primary investor starting in 1989, a role it held until recently.

Navteq became profitable in 2002 thanks to GPS, a boom in car-based navigation guides and its increasing grip on the exploding Internet mapping market. An initial public offering in 2004 helped ignite fast growth, and today it has more than 3,000 employees in 30 countries and a new headquarters in Chicago.

The company made $110 million on $582 million in sales last year and posted big gains in both categories in the first quarter. It reports second-quarter results tomorrow.

A heavy reliance on the slowing auto market, which accounted for nearly all its sales in 2000 and still brings in about 60 percent, sent its stock price on a bumpy ride. Hoping to smooth things out, Chief Executive Officer Judson Green, who headed Disney's theme-parks division until coming to Navteq in 2000, steered the company into diversity.

A pair of acquisitions for a combined $216 million in the past nine months underscore that effort: Traffic.com, which produces live traffic reports for cities across the country, and Map Network, producer of special maps for travel destinations, major hotels and big events such as the Super Bowl.

To map 12 million miles and 69 countries, Navteq used an estimated 100,000 sources, from satellite images and aerial photography to maps issued by local governments and commercial firms.

To Mr. Green, the "secret sauce" keeping the company on top of the mapping world is the 700 employees who spend half their work behind the wheel or in the passenger seat.

"I would say that 80 to 85 percent of the effort that we put into making a digital map is from that very labor-intensive driving that we do," he said. "We cannot find the quality, accuracy or richness of the information from all these other sources unless we go do it our way."

Road team ride in the specially outfitted SUVs and rely on sophisticated monitors displaying moving maps and icons. Live video from the multi-camera system is shown on separate screens.

On one recent mapping run, Mr. Joyce made sketch-pen notations on the electronic clipboard while he and Ms. McNeil watched both sides of the street for discrepancies or updates from the existing data.

They quickly spotted a cafe in Chicago's West Loop that had changed its name.

"The real world is constantly changing and our challenge is to keep up with that change," said Navteq spokeswoman Kelly Smith.