While local companies around the world have valuable map data, they face competition from global players, commoditisation of map data and increased costs associated with maintaining and upgrading their data set to remain competitive.

waze's partnership program forms a mutually beneficial relationship in which waze and its users are provided with a base map for accelerating community growth, while the partner benefits include turning their maps from static and costly-to-update resources into real-time, navigable assets with significantly lower operational costs.

Partners can also expand their data set to include real-time traffic, community updates and reports.

"The navigation market is developing rapidly with the proliferation of GPS-enabled smartphones," says waze CEO Noam Bardin. "At the same time, users' expectations of maps are growing, while revenue-per-user falls as the industry migrates to advertising-supported business models.  We're interested in facilitating our partners' access to the next generation of maps via the most efficient means possible: our real-time map building and live crowd-sourcing technology."

With alliances currently being in fostered in South America and the Far East, waze expects to announce the launch of its first partnerships in January 2010.

Interested partners can contact waze for more information at bizdev@waze.com.

Crowdsourced maps have dramatically shortened the months-long update cycles of map industry giants, and waze has taken this concept one step further; to an even faster rate of map building and updating. Instead of relying on users who edit the map from their home computers, waze empowers anyone to build maps within a game-like environment, passively, as they drive around with the company's free navigation app open on their smartphone.

While users drive, smart algorithms are used to analyze their GPS points and other driver-generated data, which is then converted into a grid of the roads, including turn restrictions and historical speeds plus real-time traffic information. Users can also take an active role, filing traffic and hazard reports with a few easy clicks when not driving.