The Garmin-Asus alliance announced today represents a less dramatic mashup than Nokia’s 2007 purchase of Navteq. The two companies aren’t even creating a joint venture. However, products will be quick to materialize now that the collaboration is public with the original nuviFone now slated to come to market as the G60. At its conference call today, Garmin-Asus indicated that Android would be part of its future handset plans.
It’s certainly no predictor of future success, but I’m quite fond of the logo for the initiative which, as its site notes, alludes to at least three separate images — a sunset (complete with a road), the well-known Chinese yin-yang symbol (If Garmin is the roadworthy yin, does that make Asus the yang?), and a person dancing (or at least raising one arm, hopefully not to hail a cab for the sake of the alliance). I immediately noticed the road (perhaps from my familiarity with the Navigon logo) and the person, but not the sun or the yin-yang. Now that I look at it, though, there is also wave and Helio-esque flame imagery – definitely one of the most pregnant tech logos I’ve seen in a long time.
[…] the Garmin-Asus logo was noteworthy for evoking a range of meanings, it’s hard to leave the symbols in the […]