• GigaOm, Thursday, January 21, 2010 3:44 PM

Nokia just released new mapping and navigation software, which some predict will prove highly disruptive to similar services offered by Google and Apple. Or at least, that's the hope of Nokia, which was an early leader in mobile maps and navigation space, but has since lost ground to rival efforts. "It's Nokia's big chance to become the GPS device maker of choice in countries where standalone navigation devices are still hard to find," writes GigaOm. Tero Ojanperä, Nokia's EVP of services, adds: "We think that the mobile phone-based navigation market is about to take off in a big way."

To date, Nokia claims over 84 million GPS-enabled devices in the market. Nokia's new Ovi Maps software has the ability to add location context to one's Facebook status messages. It also includes car and pedestrian navigation features, such as turn-by-turn voice guidance for 74 countries in 46 languages, traffic information for more than 10 countries and detailed maps for more than 180 countries. New Nokia GPS-enabled smartphones are expected to include the new version of Ovi Maps by March.

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