Alan wrote:
In article
writes:
On Tuesday, June 11, 2013 6:56:35 PM UTC-7, mike wrote:

PowerFlarm works best if most gliders use it. Offering not to fly when more=
than a few glider are airborne or promising not to climb in the areas of g=
ood lift, while generous offers, strain credulity a bit.=20

I expect a fair amount of sincere rationalizing between now and broad Flarm=
adoption in the US. It's a free country, but I will continue to encourage =
as many of my soaring friends to voluntarily adopt Flarm as I can. 100% ado=
ption at contests is the short-term goal.

Is Flarm still a closed (secret) protocol on the transmitted signal? If
it is, opening it up for others to implement it (if desired), and to make
the standard public, might go a long way to acceptance by removing the
monopoly of the manufacturer.

That comment suggests a bit of a gap in understanding of how the economy
works and how innovation is funded. First, Flarm is licensed to multiple
manufacturers today - including Butterfly who makes PowerFlarm. Second, the
pace of adoption would have to be dramatically increased to justify broader
licensing in such a limited market. This is especially true in hardware
businesses where gross margins are narrower and elasticity response to the
likely small change in street price would be unlikely to make up for the
drop in profit margin and revenues from subdividing of the market.

9B