Mapping For The Masses: GPS Market At $22 Billion By 2008

Back in the early 1980s, Trimble Navigation made a fateful decision. The firm, started in Silicon Valley by former employees of Hewlett-Packard, decided to focus its efforts on developing civilian applications of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, then being deployed by the U.S. military. The decision proved fortunate for Trimble, which has grown to a company with 2,000 employees and reported third quarter 2005 revenues of $188.5 million.

But could anyone have imagined that the once rather obscure and expensive technology would become such a huge industry? Research and Markets, recently began tracking the worldwide GPS market. The firm recently issued a market research report that estimates that the worldwide GPS market will reach a value of about $22 billion by 2008. The firm predicts that the main source of the sales increase will come, not from professionals, but from recreational users.

During the past year there was talk of, "mapping for the masses", the idea that modern technology have made cartography and navigation available to everyone. If current predictions are correct, this trend will grow exponentially over the next few years.