T&T: More Info On the Sale of Nobeltec

[Garrett Lambert]

A quote from Panbo:

"Heads are still being scratched. Why would SigNet S.A. -- the French
holding company that owns MaxSea and MapMedia, and is itself 48% owned
by Furuno -- buy Jeppesen's Nobeltec division?  And what does this
mean for VNS and Admiral users, and marine electronics?  I got to talk
with all the companies involved yesterday, and am optimistic that
Nobeltec customers will benefit from this deal, at least in the short
term, and agree with many that the overall possibilities are, um,
"interesting"...


At least for now the only real change Nobeltec users may experience
sounds like a positive.  The customer service department will move
from Denver back to Portland, Oregon, where the Nobeltec management
and developer team will remain headquartered.  Product manager Bill
Washburn says that getting the staff back together again should mean
improved service.  He also seemed happy about going to work for Brice
Pryszo, who founded MaxSea in 1985 and is still excited about PC
navigation today.  It seemed more and more obvious over the last year
or so that Jeppessen was much more interested in providing data than
developing software, let alone marketing hardware like radars.  I dare
guess it was hard to be a tiny division of a huge corporation that had
apparently lost interest.
   But Jeppesen definitely wants to keep updating and selling C-Map
MAX Pro charts, and even Passport Charts (now based on C-Map data) to
Nobletec users.  And thus it may have been a brilliant move to put
Nobeltec in the hands of a company that knows a great deal about PC
charting.  Meanwhile MaxSea gets an instant relationship with a large
US user base it's always had a hard time cracking.  But, while nobody
involved will committ to more than the keep-on-keeping-on plans above,
I suspect that there's more to the story.
   When I asked Ken Cirillo, longtime C-Map USA manager, if this
transition might lead to C-Map core data getting used by MapMedia to
make NavNet 3D and MaxSea Time Zero charts, he grinned big time.  And
I got similar results when I asked Furuno product manager Eric Kunz if
this might mean that Nobletec users will get Furuno hardware options.
At minimum I imagine Nobeltec users might eventually be offered a
smooth upgrade path to MaxSea.  Best line of the day goes to
FurunoUSA's marketing manager Dean Kurutz.  When I noted how
propitious it seems that I am just about to install and compare
Nobeltec Admiral and the soon releasing MaxSea Time Zero (w/ and w/o
Furuno hardware), and their respective cartography, he cackled, "We
win!" "

Cheers, Garrett