TO THE KIND ATTENTION OF: MR. COLIN WILSON FROM: GARMIN EUROPE LTD. Dear Mr. Wilson, This is Garmin Europe contacting you. I have been forwarded some correspondence that you had with both my colleagues Julie in the USA and NAVTEQ and we feel the need to clarify the situation. Hereby find some comments: a) Julie from the USA did not give you the correct information. We DO NOT sell MapSource City Select Europe as stand-alone package here in Europe. We never had. City Select Europe ONLY comes bundled with units or in Automotive kits for some units, such as the GPSMAP 60C, 76C, etc. b) You wrote to NAVTEQ: [...] Potted history: I bought a Garmin 2620 in Canada while on holiday, which came with all north american maps. However... Garmin won`t sell european maps to customers who live in europe, which seems a little ridiculous for a GPS manufacturer - it takes the "global" out of GPS... To buy european maps, I either have to buy even more hardware with it bundled, or order from the US and get it shipped "back" to England. Comments have been made in various newsgroups that its because Navteq impose licence conditions on their map technology preventing Garmin from offering maps outside of certain "regions". I`m just wondering if you could possibly clarify whether this is the case, because i`m thinking of writing to Garmin to express my disappointment with their "customer service" in this respect - I have a sneaking suspicion that this policy isn't of your making, and that its their method of "protecting" (artificially inflating prices) in certain markets. [...] You are correct that this policy is not imposed by NAVTEQ. NAVTEQ has nothing to do with the decision to sell the City Navigator Europe only bundled with the GPS units in Europe. This decision is a Garmin decision to protect our wide network of very supportive distributors and dealers in Europe. If every customer would do like you have done, purchasing the hardware in North America, we would have no business, no support network and most of all NO SERVICE network to provide to our customers around Europe. If no service network was provided, who would fix or replace your unit if it failed? You would have to send the GPS unit to the USA, which surely you couldn't find very convenient. Although you might think this policy is unjust, we find that this is the best way for us to assure our presence in the European market. Units and software sold in North America usually have less royalties and development costs and that is the main reason why prices are lower in the USA, and of course the current favourable currency exchange. So we might understand that customer like you are enticed to purchase in the USA or Canada, however our decision stands. You are correct, it is indeed our decision to protect our business network in Europe. c) You wrote to NAVTEQ: [...] Correspondence with Garmin themselves came up with this response - which in itself is also incorrect - City Select Europe will autoroute on my hardware - I wouldn`t need the City Navigator product which costs almost double. [...] Incorrect. While the City Select Europe will work with the SP2620, there are some routing differences between City Select and City Navigator due to the larger amount of mapping attributes used in City Navigator compared to City Select. That is also the reason of the price difference between the two products. The City Navigator Europe is the ideal product for the SP2620, using this unit to the full functionality and that is WHY we only suggest the City Navigator Europe as the mapping product for the SP2620. However it is true that City Select Europe will give you at least some routing on the SP2620 and if you were not willing to purchase the City Navigator Europe from the USA or Canada , you could have purchased an Automotive bundle for one of the other units we offer, which would have given your at least some routable mapping for Europe. d) You also reported part of our standard answer: [...] In Europe, the MapSource European City Navigator is only available in the package with the StreetPilot 2620 Atlantic (as all these products are supplied with it, it is not an accessory required for them); it is not available as a stand alone product. To use the route calculating functions of an America's StreetPilot 2620 in Europe you need to purchase the European City Navigator product, which can be bought from most US dealers (but not direct from our website for delivery outside the US), the part number is 010-10373-00 and the list price is US$624.99. We would like to underline that this is one of the reasons why it is not advisable to purchase this type of product in the USA, even if they seem to be less expensive. The higher costs in Europe are justified by higher royalties and development costs for the International version. [...] which is a totally correct answer. === Although we don't feel we have anyhow mislead you in this correspondence, we are willing to offer you a City Select Europe package at the cost of £186.48 including VAT. Acceptance of this offer on your side is also acceptance that indeed there might be routing and other functionality differences between the City Select and the City Navigator. If you agree, please, fax copy of this e-mail to +44-(0)1794-517903, which is our Cartography fax here in Garmin Europe, UK, along with your credit card details (number, expiration number, name on the card) and a shipping address for us to send you this package. Please, add a a cover letter where you state that you accept these conditions. This offer will expire as 15 February 2005 and the product will be non-returnable, except for warranty issues. Hope this is a reasonable compromise for you and we are looking forward to your response. Warmest regards, Laura Tomei International Cartography Manager GARMIN Europe Ltd. DDL: +44-(0)1794-528436 DFL: +44-(0)1794-517903 Preview our latest mapping products! http://www.garmin.com/cartography/ ============================================ -----Original Message----- From: Cartography Mailbox Sent: 14 December 2004 15:27 To: 'Colin Wilson' Cc: Europe, Cartography Subject: RE: Re[2]: Inquiry from A Consumer to NAVTEQ Dear Mr. Wilson, I apologize for the delay in my response. I have been out of the office, as well as our department just moved into our expanded facility. I have again copied the European Cartography department, as they are better suited to answer many of your questions, since they are in the UK and actually sell to our European customers. In Europe, the products that are for sale (for road data) is European Metroguide and European City Select. These should be available for sale stand alone as software in a box without a GPS. To answer your questions -- yes, the cf Que does come with CIty Select Europe and you are entitled to a second unlock The 2620 does not allow a second unlock because the map data is stored inside the unit and there is no way to get it out. We didn't want people to waste their time to find out the second unlock couldn't be used anyway. However, the 2620 can be the second unlock on any other purchase. Yes, if you purchased the cf Que with City Select Europe - and threw away the hardware (after doing your initial registration for the cfQue), you could use the 2620 as your second unlock. I'm not sure if this is the correct path to go down, as you're spending money for something that you're going to throw in the trash, instead of just outright purchasing City Select Europe. Yes, Dr. Min Kao is based here in Olathe Kansas. Again, I apologize for my delayed response. Please let me know if you have any further questions. Best Regards, Julie Keys cartography@garmin.com -----Original Message----- From: Colin Wilson [mailto:snip] Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 8:23 PM To: Cartography Mailbox Subject: Re[2]: Inquiry from A Consumer to NAVTEQ Hello Julie, CM> You can purchase European products in the UK. We do limit what can be CM> purchased. We do not allow the sale of our high end City Navigator products CM> to be sold in the country for which they cover. In North America, we do not CM> allow the sale of our North America City Navigator product. In Europe - we CM> do not allow the sale of the European City Navigator product. I am unable to locate any stockist that will sell european maps within europe, notably City Select (not your "premium" product), which from what you say is, and should be available. Perhaps you can also clarify which european map products can be bought in the UK without hardware. You mention a grey market - but by refusing to sell products within a region, this would seem to encourage a grey market rather than making your products universally available. Moving along for a moment, perhaps you can tell me if a product such as the cfQue with City Select Europe comes with a free second unlock, i.e. would I be able to unlock the maps for use on my 2620, or would it be tied to that specific hardware only, with no secondary unlock ? (as is the case with the 2620, despite being $200 more than the 2610 which comes with CDs and has a free second unlock) Alternatively, if I bought a cfQue with City Select Europe and simply threw the cfQue card in the trash, would I be able to unlock the maps it came bundled with for my 2620 ? Paradox: the cfQue hardware with maps is cheaper than buying the maps on their own ! Is Dr Min Kao based at your Kansas office ? Thanks