In April 2010 I published a ticket to locate the main actors of the electronic charting. Passing time, to refresh this information, due to recent corporate moves. Some have disappeared, as Maptech, recently Fugawi, others have changed hands, an update is needed.
Thunderclap that 27 October 2017, Navionics charts was acquired by Garmin (¹) ! The latter remained independent private publisher, to this day the hand of the Italian founder Giuseppe Carnevali, happening in the portfolio of the Garmin multinational company, shortly after the acquisition of the global database Active Captain. The cards are again redistributed…
By adding Navionics charts its own BlueChart cartography, Garmin takes first place private publishers and recovers therefore a huge customer. The question is what will change for users. Garmin, in a statement, assure :
" …we plan to retain the Navionics brand and we will continue to support existing Navionics customers. "
But the fact remains that Garmin becomes de facto provider of key competitors, mainly Raymarine, but also Furuno or Navico. This may be difficult to manage. Mark Messerli USA, on his excellent blog i - Marine Apps, does not fail to be concerned in detail and argued.
The purchase of C-Map by Altor investment fund to Jeppesen (Boeing group) in may 2016 has been mentioned recently in this blog. It allows to bring back in Europe one of the leaders of the private charting that will be closely associated with the Group Navico, and its three brands of marine electronics Simrad, B&G up to Lowrance.
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(¹) https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/fishandhunt/garmin-acquires-navionics-marine-charts/
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Hello,
Navionics is who started the battle by making use his cards (SD and micro SD) in March 2015 Garmin on this material by rotating about Garmin manufacturer protections .
This essentially to recover data probes made by users to update the maps Sonarcharts. A war broke out between lawyers. A settlement was followed, with the obligation to respect the Garmin blockages, thus activating the Navionics card through a card Garmin G2.
This has consequences, approximation of technical and management teams, which we see the result right now.
What interests are the Garmin SONARChart cards coupled with remote sensing satellite Seabed, Optimized for fishing, Navionics home that will fit into the hardware / software / Garmin maps.
The “little” Boating app also falls into the bride's basket, yet the new top.
Francis
the fact that leading publishers of maps are related to hardware manufacturers may of course fear forced updates (and paid) each evolution of the material and vice versa with cards that might not be readable on the latest readers…
" … There should be no noticeable changes from an end user perspective - at least not for the foreseeable future.. "…
After a good week to search desperately for my cards, I'm a little afraid of foreseeable future following.
(since yesterday 21/04/16 everything is back in order…hope)