CABO FINISTERRE, Spain -- Back when everyone believed the world was flat, people thought these rocky shores on Spain's windswept "coast of death" were the end of the world. In today's world, you only need a mobile phone to get there ... and back.
Route finders, once the realm of $100,000 executive cars, have been part of advanced handsets since this summer.
This feature is available from Netherlands-based Route 66, one of several companies (including U.S.-based Teletype and Germany's Navigon) that brought navigation software to handheld computers over the last two years. But some have been looking for simpler and more ubiquitous devices to tap into a potential market of tens of millions of customers.
"You can't explain a Pocket PC to your mother," said Job van Dijk, founder of Route 66, one of the market leaders in CD-ROM-based maps. That device requires a desktop computer to install maps and a tech-savvy mindset. In a brainstorming meeting last year, his company decided that mobile phones were the way to go. "It's the only device that everyone carries around, all the time," Van Dijk said.
It was a bet on the future because phones powerful enough to handle navigation software had yet to come on the market, and rivals like Dutch TomTom and France's ViaMichelin were already enjoying early success with route finders designed for handheld computers.
The excitement around handheld navigation is due to the relatively low price tag. With the navigation capability spreading from a luxury vehicle to a handheld computer, the price to get through a medieval maze that defines many a European town dropped overnight from $4,000 to less than $1,000. Plus, the consumer got a pocket PC that doubled up as an organizer.
In 2003 700,000 global positioning systems modules were sold in Europe alone. About 65 percent of those were bundled with a handheld computer, indicating they were sold as a navigation package, according to market researchers.
"These volumes gave handheld computers an extra lease of life," Van Dijk said. "Sales were already declining, but they got a temporary lift from route finders."
Until recently, handheld computers from Hewlett-Packard and PalmOne were the smallest devices with enough power to store maps of an entire country and calculate routes. Mobile phones have now caught up. Handset makers like Nokia, Siemens and Sony Ericsson have introduced so-called smartphones that can load computer-like applications, while also offering an organizer, music player, camera and photo album, as well as an e-mailing device.
Germany's T-Mobile has started offering a free Nokia 6600 phone loaded with Route 66 navigation software to customers who take a subscription. As a standalone package, the software and GPS module costs 399 euros ($493.60), plus the purchase of a 400-euro to 500-euro smartphone.
"It is not just a technological breakthrough, but also a price breakthrough," said analyst Ben Wood of market research group Gartner.
Customer research by T-Mobile has shown that navigation is the third most desired application on a mobile phone. Privately held TomTom has announced it will launch its own smartphone navigation software after the summer.
The potential market for smartphones is much bigger than those for handheld computers. Smartphones overtook sales of PDAs late last year, on the back of Nokia's popular 6600.
Market research from Gartner, Canalys and others indicate that in four to five years, global sales of smartphones will reach 170 million, compared with slightly more than 20 million this year. Their sales doubled in the first quarter, while shipments of handheld computer sales stayed flat, Canalys found.
To address the mass market, navigation software companies have tried to make route finding as easy as placing a call. Just slip in a memory card loaded with the necessary software, and it will automatically load the road maps of an entire country and hook up to the wirelessly connected GPS module that pinpoints the location to a few yards.
Products made available for extensive testing by Route 66 helped one Dutch family travel between Amsterdam and northwest Spain, a distance of some 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles). The product, which speaks in a female voice when giving directions, quickly earned the nickname "Betsy."
The maps used by all navigation software companies come from the same sources, mainly Navteq and TeleAtlas.
The navigation software in the trial ran on a smartphone from Britain's Sendo and works on any handset operated by Nokia's Series 60 system. Later this year, the software will also work on other Symbian-based operating systems from Sony Ericsson.
"Navigation is going to be that killer application for smartphones everyone was waiting for," a Sendo spokeswoman said.
