Manufacturer Asus seems to have secured the exclusive rights to use GPS giant Garmin’s PND software on Android smartphones. This little piece of news comes not too long after hearing that a previous partnership between Asus and Garmin had dissolved. Now it does seem the two companies will work together on future devices but they will be branded individually.
It looks like Asus will return to single-branding its devices, and for Garmin, it means freedom to distribute their software how they see fit. They do have plans to release Garmin apps into both the Apple App store, and for Blackberry App World. Whatever the new situation will be, both companies say they will stay close partners that will continue to support co-branded devices on the market.
From Asus Mobile General Manager Benson Lin:
“We are moving from a co-brand to a brand cooperation, and we will use Garmin’s solutions in our new Android phones exclusively for a couple of years.”
-UPDATE –
As reported earlier, the partnership between Asus and Garmin has dissolved, and now another reason behind this could be the mixed 3Q earnings Garmin is reporting. For the 3Q 2010 earnings, they did confirm that their work with smartphones would be very minimal, in favor of increasing work and marketing efforts with their aviation and maritime sectors. In the past there has been a struggle to gain ground with Garminfone devices failing in the marketplace, along with the Asus/Garmin co-branded devices not fairing so well either. The companies do say that their current phones on the market will still get needed support and updates in the future. Now back to those 3Q results, profits did rise from a previous amount of $215.1 million a year ago, to $279.5 million. Garmin’s shares on the other hand fell when looking forward to the Q4.