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TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

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Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#261

Post by Valakas_ »

tdfx wrote: post #88
scotty79 wrote: post #85

I used to work for TomTom maybe 10 years ago. I was there when Google started offering turn by turn navigation for free. Other issue was live traffic information. As you might imagine all this caused some concern among employees because that was, I think, the main source of revenue for the company. They were already doing some other stuff like fitness wearables but they didn't seem to be leaning into it. Main idea fo…

If it makes you feel better, Google doesn't have a second gold vein yet, either.

When you have unlimited money, there's no need to find it. Just buy it.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#262

Post by konschubert »

scotty79 wrote: post #85

I used to work for TomTom maybe 10 years ago. I was there when Google started offering turn by turn navigation for free. Other issue was live traffic information. As you might imagine all this caused some concern among employees because that was, I think, the main source of revenue for the company. They were already doing some other stuff like fitness wearables but they didn't seem to be leaning into it. Main idea fo…

> Then this money needs to be spent on doing a lot of unrelated inefficient discovery work wasting huge amount of money so they have a chance of finding next gold vein before shifting sands of economy and human development burry the original one.

They could also return the money to shareholders and let the shareholders invest it into startups and companies that need investment to make money. These are usually much better bets than the old company re-inventing itself.

A company is not an end in itself, it is a temporary assembly of humans to explore a gold vein. Trying to make it eternal serves the CEO, but not the shareholders.

Instead of facebook trying to create the next facebook, it should return money to shareholders and let them buy into whatever is the next big thing.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#263

Post by tinus_hn »

chrisseaton wrote: post #119
babypuncher wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> go deeper into cooperation with car manufacturers to provide builtin navigation in cars. I feel like this is a dying market as well. Why would I pay $200/year to update the maps in my car's mediocre navigation system when I can just turn on Apple CarPlay/Android Auto and get the same excellent navigation system I enjoy on my smartphone?

My car's built-in navigation can do things Apple CarPlay can't, like HUD, dashboard mapping, dead-reckoning navigation in tunnels, fuel management, etc.

It’s a $200 solution that has to compete with ‘good enough’. That’s really hard and they aren’t making it work.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#264

Post by thirdsun »

Nullabillity wrote: post #249
Bud wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. People greatly prefer CarPlay if they are iPhone users, and already people are refusing to buy any car that doesn't support it. Phone holders are over. Even as early as 2017, the majority of car buyers already wanted CarPlay in a new vehicle and one-quarter of buyers said it was a "must have". That was five years ago. I'm sure the numbers are much higher now. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/29/apple-carplay-massi…

Is that a US thing?

As a data point: I'm european and my next car will have Carplay, no doubt.

On the other hand I currently use a phone holder because my car doesn't support Carplay and nobody in their right mind would get a new car just because of this missing feature. That's why the phone holder is such a popular solution. It's a slow process, but I have no doubt that most people will insist on Carplay / Android Auto whenever it's time to get a new car.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#266

Post by [deleted] »

Hamuko wrote: post #172
cgriswald wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an older in-car system and my experience is the opposite. First, the car doesn't download map data. I'm stuck with what was on the car when I bought it unless I want to pay an unreasonable amount to update it. Second, it does download traffic data, but it's so slow that it's useless. I took its advice once and it cost me over an hour, because the alternate route had already filled up and had the disadvantage o…

> First, the car doesn't download map data. I'm stuck with what was on the car when I bought it unless I want to pay an unreasonable amount to update it. Apparently car navigation maps are a thing that you can also pirate. I think I saw a Windows tool for downloading Mercedes-Benz map updates. Never tried it though, since I was pretty content to sticking with Google Maps and a phone mount.

[deleted]

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#267

Post by babypuncher »

alaricus wrote: post #227
babypuncher wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If advertisers felt motivated enough, circumventing PiHole would be trivial. Since all they do is block DNS requests based on a blacklist, an ad company just needs to serve their content from a trusted domain. Google owns plenty of domains which few PiHole users are likely to tolerate being blacklisted. They already do this with ads on YouTube.

Youtube ads are not a problem because of uBlock Origin / Newpipe etc... I have not seen an ad in Youtube in more than a decade. But you are right. This could motivate them to move to a single domain for all Google content. But this is just another escalation in the adblock arms range. uBlock-style blockers would proliferate.

My solution has been to gravitate towards paid ad-free services, and avoid sites with business models I disagree with.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#268

Post by wutbrodo »

Iwan-Zotow wrote: post #239
wutbrodo wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A run-rate of $30B/yr is "not a lot of money"?

and how much are profits?

They don't break out the profitability of some subunits, but according to the WSJ it was "breakeven"[1] in 2014 with $4B in revenue.

I still don't see where the GP comment's confidence that it's not meaningfully profitable comes from. It doesn't seem like an uncontroversial assumption that costs have more than septupled in the last five years in the way that revenue has.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-f...

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#269

Post by ghshephard »

mardifoufs wrote: post #250
DonHopkins wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling Netscape's server group to AOL was just sadistic punishment.

For who? Genuinely curious, I didnt even know Netscape has a server division. Was it punishment for the team working there because it broke their potential, or was it that AOL got ripped of because Netscape server tech was horrible? Late 1990s/early 2000s acquisitions just always sound so wild to me! Insanely wasteful, or just even bizarre. Tons of old/traditional corporations trying to merge/buy their way into compl…

The Netscape Server products were amazing. High performing LDAP multi-master systems years ahead of its time, a calendar and email product that we used at companies years after Netscape was no more.

It was tragic that so many amazingly talented engineers ended up resting and vesting at AOL for years - but, at least they all scattered to the winds a few years after that and went to see other companies.

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