It's interesting that this is a consortium of second-tier map providers -- all the commercial enterprises that aren't as good as Google or Mapbox on the web. No ESRI participation on the GIS front. No OpenLayers or Leaflet or Maplibre on the open source front.
This reminds me of the Micro Four Thirds model, where smaller camera manufacturers teamed up to fight Canon and Nikon. This looks like a bunch of smaller map companies trying to stay relevant.
(edit: the below is incorrect, please see boise's reply below)
FWIW, I believe none of the founding members generate their own mapping data the way that Google, the Census, or Here.com do. They mostly republish Census/USPS data along with relicensing ESRI or Here spatial data. So it's not even a consortium of data creators, but more like an interop group that's trying to create a competing standard to what's already out there.
This reminds me of the Micro Four Thirds model, where smaller camera manufacturers teamed up to fight Canon and Nikon. This looks like a bunch of smaller map companies trying to stay relevant.
(edit: the below is incorrect, please see boise's reply below) FWIW, I believe none of the founding members generate their own mapping data the way that Google, the Census, or Here.com do. They mostly republish Census/USPS data along with relicensing ESRI or Here spatial data. So it's not even a consortium of data creators, but more like an interop group that's trying to create a competing standard to what's already out there.