In order to save money, Google will merge the teams of Google Maps and Waze, its two guidance services. If the giant assures that this will not change anything for users, this decision worries more than one…
Definitely, 2022 is proving to be a dark year for Silicon Valley companies! Catastrophic financial results, wave of layoffs, hiring freeze… Bad news follows one another, whether at Meta, Amazon, Disney or Snap Inc. Google is no exception and must make decisions to get through this context particularly painful macroeconomics. And this obviously requires a restructuring of the staff. As reported the wall street journal, the American giant has decided to integrate the team that develops Waze with that of Google Maps and other of its navigation services. A first since, even if the Mountain View company had bought the Israeli application in 2013, it was still very distinct teams that worked on the two navigation services. The company nevertheless wants to be reassuring and ensures that “Google remains utterly dedicated to Waze, its uniqueness, its beloved app, and its great community of volunteers and users.”
Google Maps and Waze: a union to reduce costs
The 500 employees who have worked so far on the development of Waze will, from this Friday, December 9, integrate the “Geo” division of Google, which includes the developers of Google Maps, Google Earth and Street View. If Neha Parikh, the current leader of Waze, will leave her post after a short transition period, the American giant assures that no dismissal will take place and is committed to ensuring that Waze continues to exist. At the same time, if Google Maps “swallowed” the old Israeli application, there would be an outcry from its 151 million users – it is quite popular, especially in Europe. In addition, the active participation of its community allows Waze, each month, to provide valuable data to Google, such as speed limits, accidents reported by motorists or even danger and traffic control zones. Rather practical!
The decision to merge the teams comes from Google’s desire to reduce costs by avoiding identical projects carried out on two separate fronts and by pooling the resources of the two teams. The firm had already announced in July that it would streamline procedures and combine investments when they overlap. The idea is that developers share their progress with each other in order to work more efficiently on both applications simultaneously. Google has already had, because of the difficult economic context, to abandon its Stadia cloud gaming service – the firm is currently reimbursing players – as well as the development of its promising artificial intelligence Duplex on the Web – which allows Internet users to order products or services on the web without having to fill in the forms. Several other projects could well be buried so that the company can refocus, as it announced, on the heart of its business, namely research and its advertising activity. Still, Waze should continue to exist… for now.