India’s ride-hailing company Ola is dropping Google Maps for its in-house solution. Following the move from Microsoft Azure to its own cloud Krutrim, the company has now made a similar jump to Ola Maps, ditching Google Maps.
With Ola Maps API opening up on Krutrim cloud, Ola founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal says the switch to its own map infrastructure saves the company about INR 1 billion (USD ~12 million). He went on to state that more features are on the way for Ola Maps including street view, NERFs, indoor images, 3D maps, and drone maps. The news comes about a year after the company publicly announced that it was building a dedicated maps system for its vehicles and apps.
It’s worth noting that open data from OpenStreetMap have reportedly contributed at least part of the company’s mapping infrastructure. However, the company stated that it plans to share more details about Ola Maps in a blog post soon.
Back in May, Ola decided to move away from Microsoft Azure to its own cloud solution. As per Aggarwal, this was prompted by a LinkedIn post that was removed over his criticism of using pronouns on the platform, calling it an “illness” and a political ideology that’s being imposed on Indian users.
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