Users Demand Google Maps or They’ll Leave Your Service

I’m sure there were good reasons for Garmin to use Bing over Google Maps, but their users weren’t sold on it.

…a year later, Garmin acted. Users may now select which of the two providers to use. It’s a bit of a cop-out fix, likely due to the positive things some users said about Bing. Or, perhaps it is based on an agreement with Microsoft, as many forum posters wondered.

As ProgrammableWeb points out, this has to be expensive to offer both Google and Bing.

Most likely, Garmin is now paying twice for its mistake. Both Google and Microsoft have enterprise versions and Garmin is likely not eligible to use the free versions.

For consumer applications, clearly Google Maps is the only choice you can offer. Even with pricing changes, companies will continue to have to offer Google Maps otherwise they’ll face unhappy users.

Bing Maps Pepper SprayBing Maps Pepper Spray

A little pepper spray removes that Bing Maps from your apps.


Tags
Thoughts

Date
December 5, 2011