The death of Active Captain

[DotDun]

Originally Posted by CarlF

It's ridiculous to say that Garmin made the changes around BCM as a strategy to increase profits. That would only have worked if they stopped making AC available to other apps - which they haven't. And they also should have killed BCM instead of just taking it out of the app store for new users.

Garmin fixed the server side bug with BCM and Garmin AC about a week ago. Since then, I've been using BCM everyday on Ipad and Iphone with current AC markers and expect to do so for a while.

This has been a PR disaster for Garmin and I expect people have lost their jobs over the poor transition. Panbo lists the apps now supporting AC. I expect in six months there will be many more including Garmin's promised AC of Navionics.

https://www.panbo.com/active-captain...y-app-support/

You need to reinitialize your database by going into settings in BCM to ActiveCaptain and choosing "Log Out". It will ask you if you want to delete the local copy of the database to save space. Say "Yes". Then login in and update. The first loading will take close to an hour and may get stuck a couple of times. Just hit update again and it will continue from where it left off. Separately, you should setup a new free account on the new AC web site in a browser. https://activecaptain.garmin.com

If this is true, why does the new AC app and charts cost 4 times what BCM and charts used to cost?

[Swammy]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

True....
BUT I think you are a little out of order. I think Garmin already figured out this BEFORE they bought the Company. Now they just are in the "selling it" to the folks that once got it for Free to Pay for it. Monetizing what was once free on the net takes a little time for people to eventually say "uncle" or they move onto the next new "free app" and so the cycle goes over and over. There is no Free Lunch and that includes data that was given freely to the Company. If Garmin flubs the transition, they lose money. If they do it well they make money from their purchase. That's how the Free Market works (well see Chapter on Buying off your elected Officials to control the Market, but that's a 201 level class).

Rich,
This acquisition of Active Corporation is a small amount of money. What Garmin was buying was the framework to add to their existing data base on the maps to provide an additional "sticky" element to provide additional value to enable them to charge for their navigation subscriptions. As in many, but not all, of Garmin's past acquisitions and starts, they won first to market of a particular innovation but only to get passed by a market interruptor. Remember garmin stand alone GPS for cars? Remember Tom Tom coming along and taking a full 65% of the total market taking it from Garmin. This is what happened with wearables. Garmin was the leader and out front in 2006 to 2009 on sport GPS watches only to be kicked in the pants by innovators like FitBit, Suunto and even Timex. So too, all of the market strategy was two pronged - provide a hardware platform that is exclusive and create a software value added software platform to create sustainability of the revenue stream.

With this new little acquisition, they are tying but have not put the personnel or investment horse power behind making this work correctly....yet. Thus my comment on the Jr. Executive. If they spent $10 million on this acquisition I'd be surprised. What was the revenue before the purchase? Advertising? A few subscriptions. No, the value was the platform of the users information. Now, they have a problem as to how to obtain that information in a sustainable way and charge the customer for it. One model that does this today with success is Netflix. I pay for the subscription of $10 per month but I also review the movie for the good of the whole. Another one that does this is Angies List. I pay for the yearly subscription but I am asked to give feedback which actually becomes the product.

[Southpass]

The problem with their tactic is they ruin the "community" aspect that made Active Captain so popular. If I give a review on a marina or update on a shifting sand bar in the ICW and I am thinking it adds value to a company who holds the product hostage, and worse, monitizes information I'd gladly share with another boat owner. I have a big problem with that and Garmin for f-ing up a wet dream as we used to say in the Navy.

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

True....
BUT I think you are a little out of order. I think Garmin already figured out this BEFORE they bought the Company. Now they just are in the "selling it" to the folks that once got it for Free to Pay for it. Monetizing what was once free on the net takes a little time for people to eventually say "uncle" or they move onto the next new "free app" and so the cycle goes over and over. There is no Free Lunch and that includes data that was given freely to the Company. If Garmin flubs the transition, they lose money. If they do it well they make money from their purchase. That's how the Free Market works (well see Chapter on Buying off your elected Officials to control the Market, but that's a 201 level class).

[Southpass]

Tell me how Garmin didn't just eliminate 80% of the valuable user input to Active Captain by making it product dependent and then monitizing the information given freely by mariners? I love Garmin products and have used them for years but, on this their days are numbered. There are smarter guys than me that can bend social media to the same effect as Active Captain and this version of Active Captain can go the way of Beta Max. So dissatisfied.

[a64pilot]

Well I signed out, deleted the data, signed in and it started downloading.
That worked for awhile, now we are back to it being interrupted, which is where I was, except now I don’t have the old database.

Garmin Would kill Blue Charts, except they had already sold you the maps, and I guess they blew it, cause the maps don’t expire.
However they will do what they do with everything else, no longer support it, and I am waiting for the next release of IOS to kill it, and Garmin won’t make it work with the new release.

However it seems Navionics maps do expire, I went to view Navionics and was offered to buy new maps, and the old ones so guess no longer work, so it’s a subscription based service I guess, like a Microsoft Office is going to.

[Bleemus]

Have to agree with Southpass a bit on this. Garmin is trying to monetize an open source database. The open source community are not going to support AC anymore and the data will become older and more irrelevant over time. Instead of trying to limit AC to Garmin products and Garmin paying software apps they probably should have let every developer access as before and figured out an ad revenue stream.

Open sourcers are passionate and they HATE when something like this goes private. Kiss AC goodbye.

[Southpass]

Originally Posted by Bleemus

Have to agree with Southpass a bit on this. Garmin is trying to monetize an open source database. The open source community are not going to support AC anymore and the data will become older and more irrelevant over time. Instead of trying to limit AC to Garmin products and Garmin paying software apps they probably should have let every developer access as before and figured out an ad revenue stream.

Open sourcers are passionate and they HATE when something like this goes private. Kiss AC goodbye.

I was contemplating replacing a Furuno Navnet 3D with four 15" displays on my boat. I'm in a Abacos and about to head to St. Augustine and had an older Waterways guide aboard. Thought I'd get the low down on the inlet before crossing. Garmin has blocked me from three previous sources to update charts. If I can find any reason not to buy Garmin at the moment I'm all over it. There WILL be an open-source real-time navigation date update system but, it won't be Garmin delivering it to Cruisers.

[Southpass]

Damn spell check. Navigation DATA!

[CaptTom]

I've actually turned a little more optimistic about the future of AC lately.

I haven't been shy about posting my concerns with Garmin buying it, or about how disgusted I am with Garmin's short support cycle, declaring hardware "legacy" and unsupported almost before you can get it installed and running.

They really botched the acquisition of AC from a PR perspective. And on a related note, the whole BlueChart app thing is a huge black eye for them.

Still, they've made some of the right noises since then. There has been active development, albeit a lot of it was just catch-up work which should have been given more priority sooner. They've made attempts to sooth the third-party vendors who were justifiably irate when Garmin unexpectedly pulled the rug out from under their apps.

It's still possible that they can save the AC community by being open to third parties and dedicating long-term support, not just deadline-based short term development. Both would be new territory for Garmin, but that's the only way they'll be able to get any value from their purchase.

We'll see.

[Southpass]

If that is Garmin's intention they should state that intention ASAP. There is a legitimate need for a product akin to a "Waze" for boaters. Active Captain never quite got there but it was close enough to be valuable as it was. If they continue down this path of restricting input and restricting customers using it to only those who buy their chart plotter I firmly believe Active Captain will die.

[a64pilot]

Garmin’s history is acquiring other companies as a way to grow.
They were two people, one named Gary, they other had Min in his name, they worked for Bendix / King and the story is tried to get them into GPS nav and they weren’t interested.
The two started their own Avionics company, named Garmin and bought the excellent Apollo line of products from UPS, the package people, why they had it I have no idea, but overnight Garmin was a TSO’d Avionics manufacturer, it would have taken a long time to get there themselves, so they bought in.
They have continued the buy a company and make money way of business rather successfully. They intend of course to do what they have done with Avionics, pretty much become a monopoly, or that is my belief.
Just this year they have bought AC, Navionics and Delerome InReach?

They began in 1989 and now I’m sure are an over 12 Billion dollar company.

[Group9]

Somebody will come up with the successor to Active Captain. It was too good an idea to let Garmin just kill it.

[Tornadosailing]

I haven't read the entire thread, but I have talked to a Garmin software engineer when I took him to work a couple weeks ago. He admitted that the AC acquisition was handled poorly, but one of the biggest hurdles was eluded to in the original post in this thread.

Jeff from AC wrote "Due to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements we are unable to keep this product."

This is the rub. There was a huge amount of data from europe, and new regulations regarding data privacy have forced a rewrite of the entire program. Garmin wants this product to be open sourced for everyone to use, while obviously gaining a competitive advantage because it integrates with their products. But they also don't want to open themselves up to massive lawsuits and fines for not complying with new EU regs.

It will get better, but these compliance issues are not small potatoes.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Group9

Somebody will come up with the successor to Active Captain. It was too good an idea to let Garmin just kill it.

I hope so, and I don’t even mind paying them for their trouble either.
Just don’t expect me to spend thousands replacing my nav suite to get there.
I had a Garmin 740s with Radar in my last Boat, nice machine, but I believe it is now a legacy piece of equipment and therefore won’t be supported or repaired either.

[Tornadosailing]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Just this year they have bought AC, Navionics and Delerome InReach?

Yup. The plan is to fully integrate AC into Navionics. Should be a pretty sweet product.