Navionics acquired by Garmin

[psneeld]

I can live without Garmin and with the active captain app having poor mapping without a Garmin product/account.

One more reason I wont buy Garmin in the future.

I see most of the major marine electronics companies struggling in the future as wifi and bluetooth and future systems make it easier to break into the market with stand alone products that all go pc based.

 

[IronZebra]

Know there are a few pilots (aircraft) on here as well. Does anyone know if Garmin is snatching up aviation related stuff as well as marine? If so I might have to pick up a few shares of Garmin stock. .

 

[danderer]

As I recall, Raymarine only supports Navioncs

Agree with most of the sentiment here. But, at least in their latest software, Raymarine supports Navionics, C-Map, and their own Lighthouse charts (which I believe are just reformatted government charts).

Well, ok, Lighthouse might be a more comprehensive collection than that: http://www.raymarine.com/display/?id=9606

While I like Navionics it is good to see there MAY be other available options if/when worst comes to worst. I’d guess other HW vendors would potentially have similar options.

 

[ranger58sb]

I wish Jeppsen was still around. Oh well.

Huh? Is there a change that will affect the Plan2Nav app?

-Chris

 

[FlyWright]

Know there are a few pilots (aircraft) on here as well. Does anyone know if Garmin is snatching up aviation related stuff as well as marine? If so I might have to pick up a few shares of Garmin stock. .

I am a bit out of touch in the aviation world, but Jeppesen had a good hold on the market when I retired 5 years ago. Since I retired, my old office of FAA flight crews switched over from paper NOS/FAA charts that our division produced to iPads with Jepp products.

Years ago, Garmin bought Interphase for their forward looking sonar and incorporated it into their product line. IMO, Garmin bought Navionics for their crowd-sourced SonarChart database and infrastructure. It can make their charting the most accurate and most desired.

Universally available, crowd-sourced charts would be a great improvement in the industry.

 

[sunchaser]

Universally available, crowd-sourced charts would be a great improvement in the industry.

Yup, it seems the direction things are headed. The CE group entered into an agreement with NOAA to indeed forward user data based upon GPS and depth recordings. CE is doing many things, fun to watch them move in. More players than Garmin are in the marketplace.

 

[Bigsfish]

Progress!

 

[fryedaze]

Standby for change

IMHO, Garmin will make changes to dip into the cruisers pockets deeper. Here is my example. I bought blue charts for an iPad so I could have a convienent place to have charts with Active Captain on them. I don't update the Blue Charts so they don't get anymore money from me each year. I think they will probably now require a subscription to be able to continue to use the Active Captain update feature.
Navionics already does the yearly subscription on their iPad , Android charting app. It's about $50 a year.
Garmin will get the money back they paid JS for the platform. I will pay to keep AC on a charting software product. I think a subscription fee is coming. Question is, how will it impact the volume of real time crowd sourced update to AC.

 

[psneeld]

I think many will jump to Waterway Guide.

I know I will unless Waterway Guide does a similar squeeze for dollars.

Like OpenCPN, another free users site will pop up eventually.

 

[CaptTom]

I think a subscription fee is coming. Question is, how will it impact the volume of real time crowd sourced update to AC.

For sure Garmin's way is to squeeze every nickle they can out of every customer. Whether they find a way to do it with AC data remains to be seen.

Your second point is more critical. Jeff started AC with a lot of good will. People LIKED to contribute. Some of you earned a hat (I quickly racked up enough points, but somehow never received mine.)

Garmin doesn't have that good will. Many, if not most, customers recognize they're overpaying, and do so only grudgingly. Hats off to those "money is no object" folks out there. But not everyone feels good about handing over hard-earned cash for products the vendor got for free (charts, crowd-sourced data.)

If the community of contributors survives, or even grows, I'll be glad, and I'll start contributing again. But I think a lot of us are taking a wait-and-see approach.

 

[BandB]

I think many will jump to Waterway Guide.

I know I will unless Waterway Guide does a similar squeeze for dollars.

Like OpenCPN, another free users site will pop up eventually.

Unfortunately, Waterway Guide only covers a small portion of the waterways and while it works for you, not so well for others.

 

[Wxx3]

Both. They are good for Garmin customers by presumably improving their cartography. But it also puts the hurt on Garmin's competitors but cutting off (presumably) an independent source of cartography.

I don't see this as much different from Navico buying C-Map.

Collectively, I think it's all bad for consumers. Independent and competing cartography vendors keeps them all on their toes. And electronics vendors that can use any cartography are forced to compete based on their electronics, not their monopoly of a particular cartography.

Sad to say.
I can't see how this helps consumers at all.

There are few enough third party vendors (charts that I can run alone on a any tablet, Apple or Android).

Could be a European market thing for Garmin. Everyone seems to use Navionics, at least in Northern Europe and the Baltic where there are a trillion rocks.

This really affects me, as Navionics is my secondary chart program, with C-Map being the primary.
What are my options??

 

[danderer]

Here is what Raymarine is saying publicly:

Garmin's acquisition of Navionics and its implications for Raymarine customers

The fact is that Garmin's acquisition is expected to have a very limited, if any, impact at all to Raymarine and its customers.
• Garmin has clearly stated within their press release that they intend to have Navionics run as an independent company within Garmin.
• Raymarine been in contact with Navionics at various management levels and they all reiterated the point above.
• There is a precedence with FUSION Entertainment Ltd. You may recall that Garmin acquired FUSION three years ago. FUSION, to date, has been run completely independently from the rest of Garmin and kept its brand. They continue to invest with Raymarine to have their products be compatible with Raymarine products.
• Raymarine will continue to offer Navionics cartography within the the same products.

 

[BandB]

Here is what Raymarine is saying publicly:

Exactly what you'd expect them to say. I hope it all works that way. However, even if it does and the best works out, Garmin will have two advantages. The first is cost. Doesn't matter what the intercompany billing is the true cost is just the cost of manufacturing. For everyone else it's the wholesale cost. The second it first access. Everything new Navionics does, Garmin will have the first access to. They may not take advantage of it, but they have that opportunity.

I believe as Raymarine states that Garmin will continue to sell Navionics products to their competitors. They'd be fools to cut them off and lose those sales and they aren't fools.