Garmin and ASUS announce strategic alliance for the nüvifone

Garmin and ASUS have just announced a strategic alliance that will leverage the companies’ navigation and mobile telephony expertise to design, manufacture and distribute co-branded location-centric mobile phones. Garmin and ASUS have already begun joint development on a diverse mobile phone product line, which will be known as the Garmin-Asus nüvifone™ series.

The companies expect to bring to market several Garmin-Asus nüvifone models in 2009 with the first being shown at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in a couple of week’s time. 

This alliance is ideal and is a great match for both Garmin and ASUS because it allows the two companies to combine their complementary resources to develop world class LBS-centric mobile phones. Garmin is the global leader in navigation while ASUS has leading system integration and telecommunication technologies, including significant intellectual property rights in 3G core technologies.  

Garmin and ASUS have been working together closely on the nüvifone G60 and the companies have concluded that by leveraging and combining their complementary expertise, Garmin-Asus can create a world class nüvifone product line while also shortening product development time.

The two companies see location-based services (LBS) as the wave of the future for mobile communication devices. Through the Garmin-Asus collaboration on the nüvifone, it was clear that by marrying Asus and Garmin’s expertise, we could create devices that vastly enrich the mobile experiences of users through highly personalised, value-added LBS—thus reshaping the mobile phone landscape. To find out more on this alliance go to www.garminasus.com.