Replay: Google to buy mapping company Waze for $1.1-1.3B

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Globes.co.il is again reporting that Waze the crowd-sourced Israeli mapping company is being acquired. The rumored suitor this time around is Google and they are prepared to spend $1.3B for the mapping software. The deal could close as early as Tuesday. Bloomberg also thinks this deal is happening but puts a slightly lower $1.1B price tag on the deal.

Unless this is a defensive move, the purchase doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Google already has one of, if not the best Maps DB out there and there would be a lot of overlap with Waze’s Data.

Also, Waze appears to use the media to help with negotiations (see previous ‘leaks’) – perhaps a Facebook, Apple or Microsoft deal is going down. We’ll see, we’ll see.