Google Maps competitor: Meta, Microsoft and Amazon launch open source maps Overture Maps
Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and mapping company TomTom have developed a competitor to Google Maps. Last year, four companies formed the Overture Maps Foundation to create the maps, and now the project is ready. This is not a map application in the usual sense: an open API allows third-party developers to create their own projects based on the data
According to Overture, the release includes more than 59 million landmarks, as well as data on buildings, transportation networks, and administrative boundaries. The data layers were formatted in such a way that developers could create interoperable products in a documented, standardized way. The data is available on the Overture website.
“The Places dataset is a large, previously unavailable open dataset that can capture everything from new businesses, large and small, to spontaneous street markets located anywhere in the world. Overture plans to establish a broad collaboration that will create and maintain an up-to-date, comprehensive database.” – Mark Priolo, CEO of Overture.
An open source initiative available to all could undermine Google Maps and Apple Maps by making it easier to create applications – Google and Apple APIs are not free.
