News Article
Magellan Sells Consumer Division to MiTAC
Source: www.gpsworld.com
Magellan Navigation, Inc., a pioneer in personal navigation devices for the consumer, is selling off its consumer products division to Mitac, maker of the popular Mio and Navman GPS brands.
Magellan, based in Santa Clara, California, announced December 15 that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell the Magellan consumer products division to MiTAC International Corp. of Taiwan. Closing of the transaction is anticipated in January of 2009. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The Magellan consumer products division has fielded the relatively high-end Magellan RoadMate and Maestro series portable car navigation systems, and the Magellan Triton outdoor handheld navigation devices.
MiTAC acquired the Navman GPS business from Brunswick in 2007, and merged it with its in-house Mio GPS unit in January 2008. The company’s GPS products include the low-end Mio Moov 200 and the entertainment tie-in Knight Rider GPS.
Magellan will keep its line of surveying and other GPS and GPS-related products, including a new PC software program called Real Time Data Server (RTDS) that offers land surveying companies the opportunity to use GNSS equipment to build their own direct IP RTK corrections server (see story below).
Magellan was the creator of the Magellan NAV 1000 — widely regarded as the world’s first commercial handheld GPS receiver, which debuted in 1989.
