Yesterday’s big news was TomTom’s offer of €1.8 billion for fellow Dutch company Tele Atlas. Not really a surprise, given the growth in business of online maps and navigation devices. If the merger goes through, Tele Atlas will continue to work with other clients, but apparently TomTom was its biggest customer. The ability of TomTom’s user base to update the map database was cited as a major advantage of the merger. Press release, FAQ; All Points Blog, Reuters.

Navteq’s stock was up 20 per cent yesterday as the market assumed that it would be next, the only question being the buyer — which kind of client, another device manufacturer like Garmin, or an online map service like Google or Yahoo?