iFly GPS Forum

Yes, but that may well be temporary. I'm 99.95 sure that Seattle Avionics reverse-engineered the Stratus protocol. They did not get Stratus support for compatibility.

Assuing they want to do it, which they probably do, it is easy for Stratus and Foreflight to coordinate software releases that will break the Seattle Avionics code. From ForeFlight's point of view, the main point of the Stratus deal is to lock Stratus owners into Foreflight. They are not going to be happy about even a minor player like Seattle Avionics getting its foot in the door.

The same situation applies with the Garmin GDL-39 and Garmin Pilot. Assuming it is not encrypted (the hardball approach), it would probably not be hard for someone to reverse-engineer that data stream as well. But again, a probably temporary situation.

In both cases, the goal is the same. To drive hardware sales by offering software compatility to only the chosen hardware, and to promote software lock-in by having the hardware compatible with only the chosen software. This type of thing is very common in the life cycle of technologies. In most cases, interface standardization is forced from outside somehow. Back in Olden TImes, the government forced standardization and disclosure on IBM for disk system interfaces, allowing third parties to offer compatible hardware. I was personally involved in some standardization in the process control industry where the major vendors were shoveling sand into the gears of progress until Exxon explained to them that there would be interface standards. Whether this logical next step can/will happen in our market, I don't know.

Well, a smart marketer would view the strategy as an interm horse that can be ridden until someone kills the horse with interface standardization. And, hey, the horse might run forever in a market like this where the customers are not powerful.

The interesting one for me will be the Garmin gadger ("Connext" IIRC) that lets Garmin panel electronics talk to Garmin Pilot. Specifically, does the ForeFlight crowd have enough strength to force Garmin to open up that proprietary interface? Garmin definitely owns the panel, but it does not come close to owning the tablet EFB space.