Reports indicate that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has poached engineers from Here, an automotive mapping firm based in Berlin, Germany. It is believed that the number of engineers Apple has hired away from Here number at least six.
“In the past several months, Apple has hired several people away from Here for mapping jobs in Berlin,” Business Insider learned from a source.
German joint venture
Here is jointly owned by three German based automobile manufacturers – Daimler AG (OTCMKTS:DDAIF), Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (ETR:BMW) and Audi AG (ETR:NSU), who acquired it last summer from Nokia Corp (ADR) (NYSE:NOK). Nokia had initially tried to sell the automotive mapping firm to Apple. The workforce at Here has burgeoned in the last year. While the automotive mapmaker had 95 employees last year, the employee numbers have since then grown to 970.
The Here members of staff that Apple has poached include Gilbert Schulz, Khang Tran, Manfred Reich, Konstantin Sinitsyn, Torsten Krenz and Andrey Arsentyev. All joined Apple at different dates and the majority of them are currently working in the Apple Maps division.
The six are all based in Berlin which has triggered questions about whether they are working remotely or Apple operates a secret office in the German capital. Apple has never admitted to having an office in Berlin but a report by Frankfurter Allgemeine had earlier in the year said that a secret lab in Berlin was being used by Apple to develop the Apple Car. The secret lab was said to house between 15 to 20 staff with diverse backgrounds in sales, engineering, software, and hardware.
Apple car
In October, a different report indicated that Apple had abandoned its Apple Car efforts and was instead focusing on coming up with autonomous driving systems that could then be sold to automakers. While the reason for the hires from Here could be for Apple’s car systems, it could also be simply aimed at improving Apple’s map offerings. While the map product from Apple has somewhat improved since it’s less-than-impressive launch four years ago, there is still a lot of ground to cover.
Apple stock was unchanged in Wednesday’s trading.