French governmental map maker Institut Géographique National (IGN) has selected Medion to use its “IGN Evadeo” brand. Since October 2006, IGN was producing its own on-road/off-road Personal Navigation Devices (PND) until it decided to leave the market as a manufacturer a few months ago.

Medion is therefore taking over the PND sales in France under the IGN Evadeo brand with hybrid products made both for in-car navigation and hiking which are ruggedized and waterproof (rated IPX4 or IPX7). The first of these Medion products is expected to be available in the second quarter of 2010.

Until this announcement IGN had sold over 100,000 PNDs on its own. These devices first used software from BCI Navigation (France), then from CompeGPS (Spain) and road maps from NAVTEQ, besides the topographic maps from IGN.