Garmin stunned the mobile world by announcing that it would make a touch-based mobile phone just about one year ago. That phone has yet to materialize. Rather than cough it up, today Garmin announced a new partnership with PC-maker Asus. The two hope to launch an entire range of mobile phones that will boast GPS-based features.This is quite an interesting move. It's a frank admission that Garmin didn't have the chops to go it alone. They are calling their partnership a strategic alliance that will "leverage the companies' navigation and mobile telephony expertise to design, manufacture, and distribute co-branded, location-centric mobile phones." The two companies already have begun work on a slew of new devices, to be called the Garmin-Asus nÜvifone series, and plan to bring them to market by the end of 2009.

Ah, but what about the nÜvifone, which was announced last year? According to Garmin, it will be re-branded as the Garmin-Asus nÜvifone G60. It should launch before the end of the first half of 2009. Garmin said that more information will be made available about it at the Mobile World Congress show, which is being held later this month.

Why this partnership? Dr. Min Kao, chairman and CEO of Garmin, said, "We believe that converged devices are an emerging opportunity. This alliance is advantageous to both companies because it allows us to combine our resources and establish a strong foundation from which we will innovate and introduce the world to the benefits of LBS-centric mobile phones. We've been working with Asus for over one year on the initial nÜvifone that was announced in 2008 on the basis of an ODM relationship. Learning from this experience, we concluded that by leveraging and combining our respective industry-leading areas of expertise at a higher level, we will be able not only to significantly expand our product line, but also to shorten our product development time. We believe that through this strategic alliance we are uniquely positioned to deliver the world's best-integrated and most compelling GPS-enabled mobile devices."

In other words, Garmin couldn't get the job done by itself.

All of the mobile phones produced by this new alliance will have GPS and integrated location-based services as core features.