k information. These enhancements enable delivery of many location-based services in connection with search result provision. By all measures Google Maps has been a great success: it constantly ranks as the most used smartphone app in the world [19]. Traffic and driving instruction information as well as audio augmented services have largely removed the need for GPS navigation devices. End-User Content provider Satellite Network Developer operator operator Map data provider Advertiser Google maps Backend Directory data provider producer/owner Figure 11.15 Google map business system diagram Satellite Communications The Google map business system diagram can be drawn as shown in Figure 11.15. It greatly depends on the data gathered from GPS and other satellite services and when the information is retailed to the users of Google services [19]. As a player in the content/service provision layer, Google Maps is an important part of the overall company's strategy [20]. Case Study Questions Why did Google acquire Where 2 Technologies? What is the value addition of maps for search results? How do satellite systems feature in Google Maps? Who are the infrastructure, retail and content/service players in an on-line map business? How costly are enhancements to on-line maps and how have these impacted the overall navigational business' competitive landscape? How does Google address the limitation of GPS systems? Table 11.3 Orbital altitude of satellite navigation systems System Owned by No. of satellites Orbital height (km) 20 200 GLONASS Russia 20 000 Galileo 23 222 BeiDou-1 China 35 786 INRSS India 35 786 Quasi-Zenith Japan 35 786 A number of other countries have launched, or are in the process of launching, positioning satellites to provide a national/global infrastructure alternative to that of the US military run GPS. Among these is the European Union's €5 billion Galileo programme which has launched a number of the constellation satellites and is expected to be fully operational by 2019 [21]. Other systems include the 