Ola CEO Wants Developers to Ditch Google Maps, Offers Free Access to Ola Maps
"In a nervy attempt to promote the cause of indigenous technology, Ola Co-Founder and Chairman Bhavish Aggarwal took to social media, urging Indian developers to stop using Google Maps. A day after exiting Microsoft Azure Cloud, Ola announced free-of-cost access for one year to Ola Maps on its AI-driven Krutrim platform with free credits worth over Rs 100 crore".
Cab aggregator Ola moved away from Google Maps to its indigenously developed Ola Maps for its cab operations last week, saving itself nearly Rs 100 crore annually. "We've been using Western apps to map India for too long, and they don't address our unique challenges such as street names, urban changes, complex traffic, and non-standard roads", Aggarwal said.
Ola Maps wants to do this with India-specific AI-powered algorithms and real-time data from millions of vehicles. It finds a very large amount of edits being contributed to OpenStreetMaps from the platform in just the last one year. "We are outperforming our competitors on location accuracy, search accuracy, search latency, and ETA accuracy", claimed Aggarwal.
Ola described that for very accurate mapping, Ola Maps uses a heterogeneous set of data sources. It includes real-time data from Ola's fleet, various government data repositories, OpenStreetMap, and other proprietary sources. This allows Ola Maps to update critical features like roads, points of interest, street furniture, building geometry, and traffic signals in near real time.
Last month, Aggarwal completed Ola's transition from Microsoft Azure to in-house AI platform Krutrim. It can be said that this strategic shift underlines Ola's commitment to homegrown ability for solutions fitting accurately in Indian conditions. Ola, continued investing in its technology infrastructure, is going to make the firm operationally more efficient and accurate.
In a bid to get developers on board this platform, it is making Ola Maps free and giving substantial credits to be spent on this new platform, furthering Aggarwal's vision of breaking out of Western technologies and catalyzing innovation within India's tech ecosystem.
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