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For a company that specialized in global positioning, the irony was sweet: Where should Garmin go next? By 2001, a mere 12 years after the company was founded in Olathe, Kan., it had already conquered its obvious markets. In the sky, Garmin's share of navigation tools in private planes was a commanding 80 percent, up from 30 percent in 1999. And on the ground, more than half of all the global positioning handhelds sold to hikers and fishermen were Garmin's.

So why was CEO Min Kao worried? Because Garmin needed to find new markets to keep growing. The solution, as Kao saw it, was to marry global positioning to consumer electronics. Says Kao, "We wanted to bring GPS to the masses."

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