Google is bringing together its Waze and Maps teams as it pushes to reduce overlap
Google denied the release of any transformation planning and claimed Waze would remain an individual app.
The company made an announcement about merging the team behind the Waze app into the same team that maintains Google Maps. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the measure taken doesn’t depict the end of the Waze application; also, none of the layoffs are planned in the rearrangement part. However, the CEO of Waze is expected to leave due to the work overlapping after the changes.
Furthermore, 500 employees of Waze are expected to be part of Google’s organization that observes maps of the earth and street views.
Google acquired Waze almost a decade ago.
According to Caroline Bourdeau, head of PR at Waze, “Google is deeply dedicated to Waze’s unique brand, its beloved app, and its thriving community of volunteers and users.” “The teams will benefit from even more expanded technical collaboration by adding the Waze team to Geo’s portfolio of real-world mapping products, like Google Maps, Google Earth, and Street View.” According to the WSJ, the merger will begin on Friday, December 9.
Since Google received less than $1 billion for its services in 2013,Waze has worked independently from Google’s original service. CEO Noam Bardin wrote about the true promise of Google and its liberty to remain independent. Waze provides detailed traffic data for drivers and currently has over 151 million active users.
In September, Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, reported about the company’s efforts to become more productive and the pressure from activist investors to reduce costs. One strategy Pichai mentioned for doing this was merging related product areas. It is hoped that this restructure will have a similar effect on Google’s mapping products.
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