If providers of digital maps needed any more reminders that high-granular geo-data is becoming more and more free to access, then it came with the recent announcement that the UK based, and Government owned, Ordnance Survey organisation plans to make its content freely available as an on-line mapping service sometime next year.

The Ordnance Survey‘s work goes all the way back to the Napoleonic wars and is one of the largest producers of maps in the world so you can imagine the level of detail that will soon be available to browse on-line.

What was certainly more significant however was Google’s recent announcement to offer a turn-by-turn navigation for free as part of Google Maps. This declaration puts providers of navigation services in no doubt of Google’s new disruptive intentions. The question for the larger established providers of high-end mobile navigation services is how to adapt their services and compete in a market where users are now less willing to pay.

In the same way Google is delighting its users by offering free navigation, the same opportunity exists for other content providers wanting to offer their version of navigation on Symbian. The Symbian platform makes available a Map and Navigation Framework to any content provider looking to easily develop on-device navigation services.

This framework is a Symbian initiative for any content provider wishing to leverage the Symbian platform for high-grade navigation services.  For example, providing users with a simple basis to define geo-coded landmarks or Points of Interest (PoIs) in order to make the map content richer and more personalised is one benefit .

An open development strategy can reduce development and integration costs and it allows application developers to be more productive with fewer restrictions on licensing.

Symbian’s Map and Navigation Framework extends the range of services that content providers offer application developers. Currently, virtually all content providers allow runtime access to their content using a public API which is great to allow developers to render standard content within the application.  The Symbian Map and Navigation Framework gives content providers an additional option. It is a basis to allow their developer community to build new services in application environments other than widgets. It means application developers can more easily build working prototypes without the need to negotiate content licensing separately. Making the content accessible over a pre-integrated framework as part of the device allows more developers to build better applications with that content.

I am not suggesting that geo-data should be open source, although there are open source initiatives out there, but the basis by how geo-data is used within an application environment could be.. and in the context of The Symbian Foundation, it soon will be open source!

Making the content available and accessible based on flexible licensing options can encourage a different range of applications to be developed using the content. It’s this type of model that  allows providers of geo-data to work more extensively with different application providers with the open source nature of Symbian being the main catalyst.

Happy Christmas everyone!