Foreflight being acquired by Boeing - Page 4

krw5927 · #31 03-07-2019, 06:23 AM

I give little consideration to the SA blog, coming from a company with such an awful piece of software as Data Manager.

Further, if predictions of Foreflight's doom ever do come true, I'll save money and switch to Fltplan Go. I used this last summer mostly because it includes Canadian charts, but it's a real competitor to Foreflight in my opinion. And completely free...

(I am not affiliated)

SmilingJack · #32 03-07-2019, 06:40 AM

I think about where Jeppesen was in the early 90?s with their Jeppview product and where it is now under the ?Boeing? umbrella and I don?t see a negative.

It kept growing and improving. Yes, with Jeppesen being bought out the small company feel went away, but the employee?s stayed true to the product...or as much as one can with big company issues.

I?ll stay optimistic and look at the other positive things that have to result from this. E.G. - Garmin will have to work closer with them since Jeppesen is used in their hardware, ROCKWELL COLLINS has to step up their game now that they have an ?app? but no meat behind it like Jeppview/FF.

I think this will shift gears into making another forward step for us all in all the products we use.

I have 2 subscriptions to FF, one GA and one Business.

Alan Carroll · #33 03-07-2019, 07:01 AM

I'm not worried at all about Foreflight; the EFB market has become very competitive and there are plenty of good alternatives. I've had FF for years but I'm not sure its head and shoulders above the competition like it once was.

I'm more curious about why Boeing would want to own Foreflight? Surely its a flyspeck compared to the size of their core business. Perhaps they are looking at ways to better integrate EFB technology with their existing products? If so this could indeed lead to some interesting innovations (although not primarily focused on GA).

SmilingJack · #34 03-07-2019, 07:30 AM

Alan, Yes, there is a ton a money to make in the international flying market. Boeing?s ?Jeppesen International Service/Handling? - Billions.

FF has a wide net of services business?s they purchased over the years regarding flight planning in the international arena?s.

I think they see major growth and the opportunity to gain market share.

But, there are a lot of players...

MIKE JG · #35 03-07-2019, 07:46 AM

Don't forget that Boeing acquired Jeppesen a few years back. Jeppesen has had their own EFB for a while now, Jepp FD and now Jepp FD Pro X, we use the former at my professional flying job for all of our electronic chart needs.

The Pro X version has been limited to the 121 world so far. Maybe just maybe this will be a good thing as Boeing will bring all three products under one and create a really great EFB that can be customized for GA 91 ops, 135/121 CONUS ops and 121 International ops.

That's my hope at least. Jepp FD could benefit from some of the nice features that FF has to offer.

Also the recent acquisition of Fltplan.com by Garmin was thought by many to be the end of this free and amazing flight planning app, so far so good with Garmin adding new features and usability and still keeping the free portions of the app, free.

We live in interesting times.....

airguy · #36 03-07-2019, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by N941WR

With the SkyView in my RV, I have found no reason to purchase Foreflight.

What am I missing?

That and I simply don't trust my life on PC's, be they Windows or Apple based. I deal with them in my day job and have never seen that I would want in the cockpit with me.

Only reason I did was for easy IFR preflight filing, but there are others.

GalinHdz · #37 03-07-2019, 08:17 AM

Reality check; GA is not a big priortity for the "huge" aviation corporations. If you want to use their product, pay their price.

pilotyoung · #38 03-07-2019, 08:26 AM

Here is a repost of some remarks I put on Facebook a few minutes ago.

I am a total outsider but when a big company like Boeing buys a successful, small company like Foreflight, they start changing everything to make it like the big company. They forget that the reason the small company is successful is that it had a company culture that favored innovation, rewarding and recognizing employee contributions, etc. Over the last 20 years I have watched many very good FBO's be bought by the large chains and then service went to pot. It will be interesting to see how this purchase affects Foreflight. I think the result will be good employees leaving to go to another small company that has the culture they like.

Several years ago I was at Oshkosh and went to the Foreflight booth. I talked with Tyson Wheils, the president of Foreflight. At the time I was a corporate pilot and we used Jepp charts and Foreflight, which only had the government charts. I suggested to Tyson that they make available the Jepp charts in their product for subscribers of Jepp charts. He said they had tried to do it, but Jepp wouldn't allow it. I ask him who at Jepp would not allow it and he gave me a name. I went directly to the Jepp booth and ask for that person (I don't remember the name). I told him I thought they should work with Foreflight so that their mutual customers could use the Jepp charts within Foreflight. He said they would not do that as their product was as good than Foreflight. He said they were doing further development on it and it would better. I told him he was shooting at a moving target as Foreflight was continuing to improve their product also. As we all know, a couple of years ago Jepp allowed Foreflight to display their charts.

But my point is that large companies usually think they know best. So when they buy a smaller company, they impose their ways of doing things on the small company and it usually stifles innovation. It will be interesting to watch this the next few years.

One more comment about the press release. I worked for a company that was bought by a larger company in the late 90's. For the six months that preceded the closing of the sale, we were told one story. The day after the closing, the story completely changed. I learned from that that during a purchase, you can't believe one word the buying company says. You have to wait and see after the deal is completed.

Tyson and his team did a wonderful job developing Foreflight. Hopefully they did as good job in negotiating the sale and have restrictions in the agreement to protect the product, employees, and their customers.

rocketman1988 · #39 03-07-2019, 08:34 AM

"...That and I simply don't trust my life on PC's, be they Windows or Apple based..."

Then I hope you don't ever fly on an airliner...are you ok with a TRS-80?

flion · #40 03-07-2019, 08:58 AM

^That. I've been quietly harping at Garmin to port their Pilot software to Windows so I can put it on my Surface Pro. I am on my fourth upgrade, but I still have the original, which is working just fine as an in-car PC after years of work. One of the others is my hangar machine, even though there is no wi-fi at the hangar, and the other is my home-office machine, which I am using right now. The new one is used for my teaching and walk-around use.

I'd really love to have Pilot to integrate with my panels, but Garmin doesn't see a market. Failing that, I'd like FF to fill the gap, but I'd even make do with the web app over a mobile device. Not disparaging the iPad, but why do I wan't a crippled tablet when I already have a fully-functional one?

Anyway, I can understand the concern about PCs, but any device can fail and there are PCs out there that are plenty robust. Heck, the Linux device that ran my Blue Mountain panel from 2006 was still running when I turned it in to Aerotronics a couple years ago to upgrade to the G3X. Not all hardware/software is highly failure-prone.