Uber Acquires Part of Bing’s Mapping Assets, Will Absorb Around 100 Microsoft Employees

Alex Wilhelm, reporting for TechCrunch:

Uber will acquire assets from Microsoft Bing, including roughly 100 employees focused on the product’s image collection activities. In short, Uber is absorbing data-collection engineers from Microsoft to bolster its own mapping work.

The companies confirmed the transaction with TechCrunch, but each declined to name the terms of the agreement. Microsoft handing Uber part of its operating expenses is minor, given the financial scale of the firms. The technology transfer is far more interesting.

Interesting in light of my discussion with Horace Dediu about the state of the maps industry on this week’s episode of The Talk Show — Horace specifically mentioned Uber as the next major player in the game.

★ Monday, 29 June 2015