Facebook’s bid to buy social navigation company Waze has seemingly hit a serious snag that has stalled the deal for the time being. Calcalist, the Israeli newspaper that first broke news of Facebook’s plans to acquire Waze, has followed up its original report with news that the two companies are having problems coming to terms in a few key areas.
The biggest issue appears to be Facebook’s desire to shutter Waze’s Israel-base research and development center and transfer several key Waze employees to Facebook’s U.S. headquarters. According to the paper’s sources, Waze CEO Noam Bardin and company founders Ehud Shabtai, Uri Levine and Amir Shinar insist that the firm’s main R&D center should remain operational and they want to keep all of their employees in Israel.
Talks surrounding the issue have reportedly been going on for weeks, but no agreement has been reached at this point.
