TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by nradov » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 3:50 PM UTC

hvjackson wrote: post #48

Maybe this is just my consumer perspective but I feel like TomTom really missed on a pivot to other GPS-related products that Garmin has successfully nailed. 10-15 years ago both companies were known mainly for car sat-nav systems but Garmin now has an incredibly diverse product line with well-liked fitness watches, bike computers, exploring/off-grid satellite communicators, marine charts, aviation, etc. Whereas TomT…

TomTom also tried to sell GPS fitness tracker watches but they weren't any better than competing products from Garmin, Suunto, and others.

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

#82

Post by alFReD-NSH » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 3:51 PM UTC

wjnc wrote: post #20

dtech wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pretty much lost because free (subsidized) alternatives like Google Maps became available, pretty much the same story as Netscape. It probably didn't help that their maps were also incredibly expensive, €100-200 for western Europe in 2005 money.

Netscape disbanded as a company in 2003. Why is TomTom still here? I like the questions at the end of a company since a large market I work in (insurance / life insurance) is dwindling as well. What does that do with companies? How do they communicate? What happens when the inevitable shrinking sets in and your brain drain is faster than the way you shrink? Should you ever actively terminate a company and tranfer IP…

As long as they have their B2B deals, they are gonna be around.

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

#83

Post by alFReD-NSH » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 3:52 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #63

wjnc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me be the first to say that hardcore capitalism isn't my usual purview. And that exactly the diversity of stakeholders is why I like this question. TomTom obviously offers no value to shareholders (no dividend policy, history of losses, perhaps except those searching for volatily). It's 49% owned by the directors with a 51% float. It clearly offers some value to customers since it has revenues. However, the reven…

> most auto manufacturers seem able to procure these materials in-house Most auto manufacturers go outside for nav/infotainment units from suppliers like Here, MVI, Telenav, etc. I don’t see any impenetrable barrier that TomTom couldn’t try to compete in that market (or as a data supplier to that market).

They are in that market actually with major manufactures like BMW.

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

#84

Post by chrisfosterelli » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 3:52 PM UTC

hvjackson wrote: post #48

Maybe this is just my consumer perspective but I feel like TomTom really missed on a pivot to other GPS-related products that Garmin has successfully nailed. 10-15 years ago both companies were known mainly for car sat-nav systems but Garmin now has an incredibly diverse product line with well-liked fitness watches, bike computers, exploring/off-grid satellite communicators, marine charts, aviation, etc. Whereas TomT…

Tomtom did try to enter this market with a series of GPS watches [0] some years back but the garmin watches were better in nearly every way and dominated the market quite quickly.

[0]: https://www.amazon.ca/TomTom-Runner-GPS-Watch-Black/dp/B00IK...

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

#85

Post by scotty79 » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 3:53 PM UTC

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 for staying in business, since you can't compete with free, was to go deeper into cooperation with car manufacturers to provide builtin navigation in cars. They were already doing it back then, I think, but they've seen their salvation in capturing bigger part of that market.

I was a software developer there, employed in projects pretty far from their core business, but I learned there a lot about how companies become corporations why they can and do run like a headless chicken, spilling money left and right. It's basically about survival. Company becomes a corporation when it randomly discovers a gold vein in the economy. For TomTom this gold vein was maps on portable computers. This gold vein brings in absolutely insane amount of money. 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.

From what I see shared in this thread, TomTom still haven't found their second gold vein.

Maybe I should get hired there again. A lot of my friends from other jobs work there now. I never seen from the inside how corporations die.

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

#86

Post by kalleboo » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 3:53 PM UTC

kawsper wrote: post #21

wjnc wrote: post #6

TomTom is such an interesting story in technology and finance. Went from zero to $ 10B+ between '05 - '07 [1]. Everyone you knew had one, used one, loved one. Then the sudden boom in mobile phones and mobile internet and the financial crisis. Total crash of the stock. Pretty much subsistence without any proper profits since '09-'10. Not enough IP to get bought, a few licensing deals here and there. Always falling rev…

They did try moving to mobiles, I used to have TomTom Navigator on my Symbian phone (Nokia N73), it worked quite well back then! But you needed a seperate bluetooth GPS device because my phone didn't include a GPS-receiver.

Heck I own the TomTom Australia iPhone app, which I bought when visiting my parents who live out of mobile reception range. The maps were already much more accurate than Google when it came to rural tracks.

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

#87

Post by topaz0 » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 3:56 PM UTC

noasaservice wrote: post #2

Damn. And instead of reinvesting and furthering R&D, product lines, and more - they're just chopping 10% (or 450 people). That's a hell of a lot of institutional knowledge just gone. It also goes to show that when I automate, I should keep it hidden. That's because I do not receive the gains of automation. Instead, I receive more work or get laid off.

What they should really do is take those productivity gains and use them to allow the same number of workers to do less work each, for the same pay.

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

#88

Post by tdfx » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 3:56 PM UTC

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.

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

#89

Post by metacritic12 » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

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.

But they (chose / lucked into) a gold vein that's huge and growing.

And played no small role in shaping the ecology (Android to keep abreast of mobile, Pixel to reduce hardware monopoly) to ensure that gold vein grew.

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

#90

Post by VBprogrammer » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

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…

Interesting that going deeper integrated into cars was their game plan. I've never used our in-car GPS (other than playing with it once). If it was any good it has a ton of advantages over using Google, including display on the "speedometer" screen.

Sadly, it's pants. It comically announces caution stationary traffic on the M25, generally after we've been stationary for 5 minutes. The navigation directions aren't as good and Google is just so much better at door to door directions to a named destination. Others will get you close to your destination and you have to work it out. Google will, more often than not, take you to the correct carpark.

With Android Auto displaying on the dash it's not even a competition.