“Maps are only growing in importance as they become the primary portal on mobile phones for a growing list of information and services,” writes Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst Julie Ask in a blog post examining Google’s acquisition of Waze. “As Apple showed us last year, it’s critical to own maps — and to do maps well — particularly as a growing percentage of time is spent discovering, accessing, and engaging content within maps.” However, with that said, it’s not entirely clear what justifies a $1B+ (reported) price tag for Google’s acquisition of Waze.

“For instance, many companies do acquisitions for audience, but Google’s audience — even just on Android or Google Maps — is substantial,” notes Ask. But Waze does offer new features for Google Maps, such as the ability of users to report traffic issues, layering user-generated content into Maps in a way that makes sense and is useful to everyone in the moment of need.

“With maps integrated into every retail, travel, banking, insurance, (go down the list) mobile app, I don’t think any company can have too much map technology, or too many engineers/developers for maps and navigation technology,” Ask concludes.

For the full analysis, visit Julie Ask’s blog here.