On Apr 5, 6:07 am, Ron Natalie wrote:
Mxsmanic wrote:
Aluckyguess writes:

Jeppeson sure has a nice little monopoly going. $760.00 to get the updates
for my mx 20 and Apollo 60 GPS.
Dang.

And the margins are probably around 99.9999%, since generating an update
probably requires no more than pressing a button.

And paying engineers to design the software that backs up pushing the
button. Maintaining a cartography staff to handle the fact that there
are holes in the government provided data. Maintaining 24/7 customer
support for people who can't figure out how to download the data. Oh,
and paying for liability insurance or self insuring in case someone
gets a judgement. Oh and maintaining legal counsel to defend against
a number of lawsuits pending against them at any given time claiming
they were responsible for real or perceived responsibility in an
accident.

Oh yeah, it's such a profitable business that Google and every
other computer company is clamoring to get into the biz.

I don't believe the interface is open. No one else can get into the
biz. This is what generated several law suites against Atari and
Intellivision when I was a kid. Someone just needs to challenge them
in court to open these interfaces on the basis of anti-trust.

-Robert