When I heard the news that Google (GOOG) was moving into the indoor-mapping business, I called Ankit Agarwal to offer my condolences.
You see, Agarwal runs Micello, a small startup in the indoor-mapping business. I figured with the tech behemoth moving in he was toast.
I met Agarwal a year ago while touring the Plug and Play startup incubator in Sunnyvale. I admired his enthusiasm. I thought his idea was intriguing — digitally mapping shopping malls, convention centers, airports and such to help people find their way around them. I liked his story — he founded the company with his father, a Sun Microsystems veteran.
Hey, Agarwal had a good run, right? I mean, Google. Google isn’t the 800-pound gorilla. Google is whatever it is that snacks on the 800-pound gorilla before bedtime. Google plays to win and wins more often than it loses.
So, I called.
“Would you believe,” Agarwal says when he answers, “the day that Google announced indoor maps was the best day of my life?”
Why no. I wouldn’t.
“Google coming into this space is something we’ve been waiting and waiting for,” he continues. “It’s awesome.”
But before you conclude that Agarwal is just another startup CEO who for public consumption can turn the worst thing in the world into the best thing for his company, hear him out.
Indoor mapping, you see, has not exactly been the hottest tech breakthrough. Some had been wondering just how interested consumers would be in finding their way around the local mall by following a blue dot representing themselves. But now that Google is in? Having Google jump into a business is like having Lady Gaga wear Versace shades. Once Gaga is in, everybody needs to be in.
“Suddenly, Google has given it credibility,” Agarwal says. “Suddenly everybody is scrambling, thinking, ‘Where am I going to get indoor maps from?’ “
Furthermore, Google’s move will likely prompt mobile device makers to step up efforts to make their location and positioning features even more sophisticated, which makes indoor maps more useful, Agarwal says. The push just might start with Motorola Mobility, he adds, which Google bought in August.
Agarwal’s chipper take on the new competition is a reminder that the Silicon Valley ecosystem is as complicated as any jungle on the planet. Companies can be competitors and partners at the same time. Competitive relationships, or symbiotic ones for that matter, can turn in an instant. Markets are not always zero-sum games.
Like any good startup CEO, Agarwal is cautious about naming companies he’s wooing. But the general cause for his joy is that Google’s competitors and other enterprises — search engines, wireless carriers, companies like Apple (AAPL) (which would be Apple), online retailers with a physical presence — might want indoor maps of their own that come from a company other than Google.
And Agarwal has maps. Micello has a database of nearly 8,500 mapped venues in the U.S., Canada, Japan and elsewhere. They’re working on shopping malls, airports, convention centers, universities, some local school districts etc. The company sells the map data for a monthly fee or will license its information to companies that want a large numbers of maps. Companies can then choose where the maps live, such as on their website or mobile app. And they can choose what special features they want on the map — search functions, corporate colors, even information such as flight times for airlines or conference schedules for convention centers.
Sure, there are other companies — such as Point Inside, FastMall, and aisle411 — working on various digital map initiatives. But Agarwal is willing to take his chances.
Steve Blank, who teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford, says Agarwal’s optimism is not misplaced.
“I couldn’t agree more,” he says of Agarwal’s rosy analysis. “There is usually, in most markets, not such a dominant player that there can’t be somebody else who wants to play.”
Some predicted Microsoft Money would be the end of Quicken, Blank says. Didn’t happen. Some were certain Apple’s FaceTime would crush Skype in the video calling category. Nope.
Only time will tell, of course, where the battle of indoor map makers leads. But for now, Ankit Agarwal says he and Micello are doing fine, thank you.
Contact Mike Cassidy at mcassidy@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5536. Follow him at Twitter.com/mikecassidy.
