Asus teams up with Garmin on nuvifone series

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Garmin and ASUSTeK Computers (Asus) have announced a strategic alliance to design, manufacture and distribute co-branded location-centric mobile phones.

The two firms said they have already begun joint development on a product line that will be known as the Garmin-Asus nüvifone series.

The alliance has promised to bring several Garmin-Asus nüvifone models to market in 2009, and a new Garmin-Asus nüvifone model will be announced at next week's Mobile World Congress trade show.

“We believe that converged devices are an emerging opportunity,” said Dr. Min Kao, chairman and chief executive of Garmin.

Asus has been working with the satellite navigation firm for more than a year on the initial nüvifone that was announced in 2008, through an original design manufacturer (ODM) relationship.

Kao added: "Learning from this experience, we will be able not only to significantly expand our product line, but also to shorten our product development time.”

The original Garmin nüvifone that was announced in last year will be re-branded as the Garmin-Asus nüvifone G60, with a provisional availability date somewhere in the first half of this year.

Building on Garmin's existing, location-based functionality, the nüvifone series will offer the same turn-by-turn, voice-prompted navigation features found on high-end Garmin portable navigation devices (PND).

Other details about the G60 were scant, but it will have preloaded maps and millions of points of interest to allow drivers to quickly find a specific street address, establishment’s name or search for a destination by category.

The nüvifone will also include a feature designed to enable quick access to online points of interest through internet-enabled local search.

And it will also come pre-loaded with the social networking application, Ciao to bridge the gap between and integrate multiple location-based social networks on the one device.

Bob Tarzey, service director at analyst Quocirca said that, given Asus' success in the low-end, commodity netbook market, it wasn't surprising it was looking to extend its reach with location-based mobiles.

"This announcement is an indication that GPS will become a default in mobile devices, just like cameras are now," he said.

"But the popularity of this new range will depend on what applications they support with them."

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