HERE Is Some Revenue

With the drive toward more technology in vehicles that must be kept up at a consumer electronics freshness pace, not the classic “let’s wait until the midcycle refresh” one, OEMs are faced with a variety of challenges, not the least of which is a financial one:

How can they generate some revenue from tech?

HERE Technologies, the company that brought Audi, BMW and Daimler together as they were looking for the ways and means to get something of a return on their investments in navigation technology (so they took what had been part of Nokia and acquired it in August 2015), has developed what it claims is the world’s first software as a service (SaaS) for navigation and connected services, HERE Navigation On Demand.

The company is offering all of the elements needed to configure and deploy navigation. It can be ported to various operating systems that are operating in vehicles and then run in the infotainment system or it can be mirrored from a smart phone.

Because it is an integrated package, HERE says that its system simplifies an OEM’s infotainment development process and supply chain, and reduces bill-of-material costs. And because it is a SaaS approach, it is upgradable over time, even when the vehicle is already in market.

But here’s the key think. According to Edzard Overbeek, CEO of HERE Technologies. The Navigation On Demand product provides OEMs “the freedom to create their own business models that support their unique strategies.”

And right from the start, apparently, with the system installed they are able sell connected services and thereby generate a new revenue stream.

So this technology doesn’t only cost the OEMs money, it actually can make money for them, as well.