Placebase Goes to Apple

While the actual sale of mapmaking company Placebase to Apple occurred back in July, it was only the recent article by Seth Weintraub of Computerworld that has brought discussion about the sale to the forefront.  Weintraub noticed a Tweet by Fred Lalonde, the founder of openplaces.org that announced the “hush, hush” sale.  Unable to confirm the transaction for months, Weintraub was finally able to verify the sale when he checked the Linkedin profile of PlaceBase’s founder and CEO, Jaron Waldman which now shows him as part of the Geo Team at Apple.  Both Weintraub’s article and a posting by MG Siegler over at TechCrunch ponder what the acquisition of this online mapping application means in terms of Apple’s relationship to Google.