The new cost-cutting measure from Google is to put the Waze and Maps team as a single unit, which is not a good point for Waze’s independence.
Earlier this year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai set out on a mission to cut costs to make operations more efficient. The search giant has stopped Stadia, half of Area 120 projects, and Pixel laptops… And the latest cost-cutting move is to merge the Google Maps and Waze teams into one.
reports As The Wall Street Journal, Google is incorporating the 500-person Waze team into Google Maps its team. The decision to merge the two groups is supposed to eliminate overlapping mapping across Waze and Maps products.
There are many areas where both these applications overlap. Both Waze and Maps provide navigational assistance, maps world, and places of interest. But Waze’s feature is reporting from the community about things like road hazards or speed traps.
A Google spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that the company remains committed to Waze’s unique brand and community of volunteers and loyal users. Google also says the company plans to keep Waze as a standalone service.
However, this restructuring does not bode well for Waze to continue operating as an independent company. This situation is no different from what happened with Nest.
The nest was acquired by Google in 2014 and operates independently. Eventually, the company merged with the Google Hardware team. It is likely that a similar fate is coming to Waze after this restructuring.