Palm GPS Goes Garmin
Until now whenever you heard “Palm GPS Navigator” what you would think of was TomTom’s Navigator software packaged with a Bluetooth GPS receiver. You would load up the TomTom software on your Palm device, connect it to a Bluetooth GPS, and navigate away. However that might not be the case for much longer.
Garmin and Palm announced yesterday at the CTIA show that the new Palm GPS Navigator, coming out in late November at around $250, will use the Garmin Mobile XT software package. The software will come on a micoSD card (there are adapters for mini and standard SD) and will include maps covering most of North America. Like most of Garmin’s other offerings it will come with 6 million POIs.
Taking it a step forward, the new software will also offer free access to Garmin Online which will give Palm users access to traffic information from traffic.com, hotel prices, weather forecasts, and fuel prices.
I’m guessing this means that Palm will be replacing TomTom’s software with the Garmin software and that the TomTom based product may no longer be offered by Palm. TomTom will probably continue to sell their Navigator product through their own channels just as they have before. While probably not a financial blow to TomTom, it could be a bit of a sentimental blow as TomTom started as a company producing software for PDA devices.
