It's been a year or so that we expect the market to move in the direction of communicating GPS. The first official product is the TomTom 715. It is basically a 710 with a GPRS modem and a Data SIM card included. TomTom targets professionals in need of a fleet management solution: tracking a sales force or delivery trucks.
The TomTom 715 costs 649€ and comes with a Vodafone subscription: 19,90€/month for Germany only, 27€/month for West Europe and 37€/month for Europe. The subscription includes the TomTom Work Webfleet software, allowing you to track your people, send them information and have them report on deliveries, late arrival, etc.
TomTom is not the only company launching a communicating device: Garmin is planning to launch its own solution in a month, combined with its GPS Buddy software for fleet management.
Ok... this is just the beginning. We should soon see solutions addressing the mass market, with cheap subscriptions and cool community apps.
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