If you looked at this week’s press releases you’d find that indeed existing players are stepping up.

First off Maine-based DeLorme is jumping into the space with (press release) its DeLorme World Base Map at 1:250,000 scale,and DeLorme North America Data Sets,including a routable street and trail network of the US. The data is available for “or use within third-party GIS and OEM applications.”I suspect the proliferation of mobile devices (and Apple’s “bring your own data”for turn by turn”) have helped open new markets. It’s interesting that DeLorme will debut the datasets at the ESRI user conference (traditional GIS);I would not be surprise to see the company also attending more generic mobile developer conferences as well.

Second,AND notes its latest country covered:Denmark (press release). AND notes its independence in the commercial data space in the release:“AND Automotive Navigation Data is the third largest supplier in its market,but the only independent one.”DeLorme may want to do the same thing.