Yeah, except that when you consider that every Cirrus/Lancair ships with
at
least a pair of 430's, it's not much of a competitor. It's as if every
Chevy
truck shipped with a Ford engine. The Avidyne Entegra system may be nice
to
fly behind but it is at least a generation behind the G1000, and will
likely
continue to fall further behind as time goes by. If Avidyne can't do
something new and interesting within 2 years they're finished.


A good point, and it will be interesting to watch. However, Avidyne makes a
lot more on each of those planes than Garmin does. Garmin may be like
Microsoft or IBM in some ways, but not quite. Jeppessen on the other hand IS
Microsoft like in their monopoly and the pricing reflects it.


King,
Honeywell, and Chelton are coming after them as well. The guys doing
software for PC and Palm platforms are a threat. Microsoft could enter
the
fray, and so could a few Japanese companies which would likely happen if
Toyota or Honda started building planes. So anyone thinking the UPS
acquisition should have been stopped has weak case in my mind.

As someone else mentioned, the market is not necessarily big enough. The
real strength of the G1000 is that it can be put into nearly any plane up
to
light bizjets and perhaps beyond. This provides a base to spread the
development costs across.

I would love to see Toyota or Honda building planes, but then I used to
believe in the Easter Bunny too. Dunno about Toyota but I wouldn't be
shocked if we saw Honda enter the LSA market, given their experience with
ATVs, PWCs, and motorcycles. In any case, odds are whatever they build
will
be proprietary to their planes and so not do the rest of us any good- kind
of like the G1000.

Best,
-cwk.


I think you should be a bit less cynical about the G1000. The fact that
they are only selling to OEMs is really understandable. Garmin or another
company will doubtlessly be in the market in the next few years with Glass
upgrades for older models. Glass was available for experimentals before the
G1000. The economics has to work though. As time goes on, the easier and
cheaper it will be to do this.