Garmin announced its first mobile phone yesterday. According to Garmin, it’s slim, sleek, innovative, and a breakthrough. It’s a phone, navigator, camera, browser, and music player. Many of the media reports on it reflect surprise.

I am not surprised.

Why wouldn’t Garmin make a phone? Convergence has been in force in technology forever. The phone manufacturers and camera makers are adding navigation. People seem to put the navigation device makers in some sort of dunce’s corner where they are not expected to keep up with the Apples and Nokias; and act surprised when they make a smart move. One lesson here for Garmin, Mio, TomTom, and the others is they need to do more to change their reputations as niche players. The nüvifone should help that cause.

Will people want this thing? The most likely buyers are those already using or interested in personal navigation devices (PNDs). The trick for Garmin will be to expand beyond PND enthusiasts and sell the value to everyone else. This will require the right messages, applications, pricing, partnerships, and carrier platforms. The mobile phone buyer is quite fickle. There are no guarantees – in fact almost simultaneous with the nüvifone announcement was Motorola’s about exploring the sale of its mobile phone business. It’s a tough business with many competitors and is different from the PND market. Most people won’t know or care much about the clear superiority of Garmin’s navigation services over, say, Verizon’s. Plus, Nokia will have the same combination but moves in from the phone side and data side with it’s recently acquired Navteq.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a while for the device; third quarter 2008 says Garmin. By then there will be at least a couple others like it. And who knows – maybe Apple will get smart and improve its navigation capabilities (iFind?) sooner rather than later!