Google finally announced that they have acquired Waze, the popular crowd-sourced navigation app based in Israel. There were reports that earlier this week about the acquisition for $1.3 billion. These companies did not reveal the price on the deal, but TechCrunch reports that the detal was done for $1.1 billion. Waze has over 50 million users globally and offers real-time traffic and road info submitted by these users.
The product development team of Waze will remain in Israel and operate separately for now. The community, brand, service and organization, the community hierarchy, responsibilities and processes will also remain the same.
Regarding the deal Google said,
We’re excited about the prospect of enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google’s search capabilities. We’ll also work closely with the vibrant Waze community, who are the DNA of this app, to ensure they have what’s needed to grow and prosper.
In a blog post, Waze said,
Larry Page, Brian McClendon and the Google Maps teams have been following our progress closely and are excited about what we’ve accomplished. They share our vision of a global mapping service, updated in real time by local communities, and wish to help us accelerate. We are excited about the prospect of working with the Google Maps team to enhance our search capabilities and to join them in their ongoing efforts to build the best map of the world.