In an effort to streamline procedures, Google announced on Thursday that teams working on the mapping application Waze and products like Google Maps will merge starting on December 9.
According to a Google spokeswoman, the firm controlled by Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc. will include Waze, which it purchased for $1 billion in 2013, into Google Geo, its portfolio of real-world mapping products that also includes Google Maps, Google Earth, and Street View.
Google said that Neha Parikh, the CEO of Waze, will leave the firm after a transitional period. Waze will continue to be a standalone app with around 151 million monthly active users worldwide.
The Waze team will benefit from even greater technical collaboration thanks to Geo’s decision to include them in its portfolio of real-world mapping solutions, the representative claimed.
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet, stated in a letter dated July 12 that the business would streamline procedures and combine investments where they overlap.
Noam Bardin, a former top official of Waze, claimed in February 2021 that the company struggled to expand within Google and that it “definitely could have expanded faster and far more efficiently had we been independent.”
(In paragraph 5, the date has been changed from July 10 to July 12 to reflect the correction.)
