Return-Path: Sender: (Marvin Kaye) To: lml@lancaironline.net Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 22:41:37 -0500 Message-ID: X-Original-Return-Path: Received: from cassiopeia.email.starband.net ([148.78.247.122] verified) by logan.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 4.1.8) with ESMTP id 3066496 for lml@lancaironline.net; Sat, 06 Mar 2004 11:12:02 -0500 Received: from regandesigns.com (vsat-148-63-101-227.c002.t7.mrt.starband.net [148.63.101.227]) by cassiopeia.email.starband.net (8.12.10/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i26FmsLu014184 for ; Sat, 6 Mar 2004 10:48:56 -0500 X-Original-Message-ID: <4049F812.7010500@regandesigns.com> Disposition-Notification-To: Brent Regan X-Original-Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 08:10:58 -0800 From: Brent Regan User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Original-To: Lancair Subject: Re: Neat Gadgets Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------040506090200070004070802" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------040506090200070004070802 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bruce writes: <<< CMA's last quote to me for a CT-1000 was 17k. Now I doubt that their follow on product will be less expensive. I hope I'm surprised. It's sure neat, but I think their business model is to sell to the high end turbine crowd and airline market even though they could sell 10 times the product if they priced it in the 5-6k range. >>> Hope springs eternal. A major design driver was cost reduction. Remember that now, more than ever, the turbine and airline guys are cost sensitive. While I do not have final pricing information on the CMA-1100 I can say that the the target was set to be competitive with the "improved" consumer tablet computers (e.g. FG-3500) which currently retail in the 6-8K range. CMC wanted a top of the line, clearly superior product at a price point that would make a feature comparison based buy decision a "no brainer" in favor of the CMA-1100. Remember that for fleet operators the "buy decision" is NOT made by pilots, it is made by bean counters so price is VERY important. IMHO and based on the buzz, the real barrier to ownership will be availability, not cost. During development, Hamid and I had just finished the first, hand built, pre-production unit and we wanted to notify CMC so we connected a USB 2.0 video camera to the CTX (the CMA-1100 project name) and used it to take a picture of itself. We then used the wireless network interface to email the picture and a message to the client. The entire process was done wirelessly and using the built in keyboard. It was a real "Mr. Watson, come here. I need you." moment at the end of several months of very intensive work. If you are in the EFB market, try to hold off purchasing one until you see the CMA-1100. I have a commercial interest in this product so I am not going to make any grand claims or a sales pitch. I don't need to. Once you spend 5 minutes with one you will be sold on it. Shop the market. See for yourself. Regards Brent Regan --------------040506090200070004070802 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bruce writes:
<<<

CMA's last quote to me for a CT-1000 was 17k. Now I doubt that their
follow on product will be less expensive. I hope I'm surprised. It's
sure neat, but I think their business model is to sell to the high end
turbine crowd and airline market even though they could sell 10 times
the product if they priced it in the 5-6k range.

>>>

Hope springs eternal. A major design driver was cost reduction. Remember that now, more than ever, the turbine and airline guys are cost sensitive. While I do not have final pricing information on the CMA-1100 I can say that the the target was set to be competitive with the "improved" consumer tablet computers (e.g. FG-3500) which currently retail in the 6-8K range. CMC wanted a top of the line, clearly superior product at a price point that would make a feature comparison based buy decision a "no brainer" in favor of the CMA-1100.

Remember that for fleet operators the "buy decision" is NOT made by pilots, it is made by bean counters so price is VERY important.

IMHO and based on the buzz, the real barrier to ownership will be availability, not cost.

During development, Hamid and I had just finished the first, hand built, pre-production unit and we wanted to notify CMC so we connected a USB 2.0 video camera to the CTX (the CMA-1100 project name) and used it to take a picture of itself. We then used the wireless network interface to email the picture and a message to the client. The entire process was done wirelessly and using the built in keyboard. It was a real "Mr. Watson, come here. I need you." moment at the end of several months of very intensive work.

If you are in the EFB market, try to hold off purchasing one until you see the CMA-1100. I have a commercial interest in this product so I am not going to make any grand claims or a sales pitch. I don't need to. Once you spend 5 minutes with one you will be sold on it.

Shop the market. See for yourself.

Regards
Brent Regan
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