Nokia Pulls the Plug on NAVTEQ NN4D

As part of the alignment of digital map maker NAVTEQ within the Nokia Location & Commerce Group, the Finnish phone manufacturer decided to close down NAVTEQ Network for Developers (NN4D), its outreach to location-based services developers. The whole team was made redundant at the end of last week.

NN4D group was 30 to 50 people offering a mix of marketing and technical support for wireless developers building services with NAVTEQ maps. NN4D web portal (still live today) includes resources such as mapping APIs, LBS content, point of interest data and routing information as well as geospatial platforms and tools from NAVTEQ and its partners.

NN4D was notably known for organizing the Global LBS Challenge which ran from 2003 to 2010 and helped many LBS start-up to emerge on the global scene. This was the case for Trapster However, the hegemony of Google Maps both on the iPhone and Android made quite difficult for NN4D to compete against the (almost) free offering of the Mountain View web giant.