Foreflight is now Boeing

flyingcheesehead said:
A handful of people here =/= the vast majority of customers, by any stretch of the imagination.



So, uh... Are you going to integrate with the Garmin stuff in my panel? ;)

OK, that is a semi-serious question. If so, can you do synthetic vision off my GTX 345 AHRS as well as a moving map/chart on the screen at the same time?
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We absolutely would integrate with Garmin in a heartbeat, if Garmin would publish or otherwise provide a mechanism for us to do so. I personally want this as well in my Garmin equipped plane;)
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I don't think the "anti-Garmin gang" was using ForeFlight either... They were using things like WingX, FlyQ, etc because they're the cheapest of us cheap bastards. ;)
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Sorry, I didn't explain. I don't use any EFB. No real need. But the cost and "big company" hatred is right around the corner.

I think Garmin would kill to get the kind of margins Boeing demands.

Foreflight may price itself into FormerFlight. And Garmin Pilot might just enjoy the ride.
 
JOhnH said:
I'll admit that I am thinking about it. But I'm not going to do anything until I see any evidence that the dire predictions are coming true.

I hope this doesn't get me banned, but I think it is like all those people (from both parties) that said they were leaving the country if their candidate didn't get elected President in the past few elections. Very few of them actually left.
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I’ve been thinking about leaving foreflight for a while. They used to add features within a price level and lately they’ve seemed to add features only to the top levels and added higher levels. I doubt this will improve. I canceled my foreflight auto renew that was set for March 11 and purchased a FlyQ IFR subscription for the next year at a discounted rate. So far it seems to do what I need and the option of a lifetime subscription is really enticing to me. If I like it enough I may be waiting in line next black friday for the lifetime deal, or I may be jumping back on the foreflight train. The great experiment begins!

Edit: I’ve been a foreflight customer for 5 years and a pro subscriber for ~3.
 
wayne said:
Still using WingX. :D
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Wing X is the best in my opinion. I have used all the apps and Wing X is the only one I use now.
Heck when I first tried Foreflight it didn't even have track up! What crap. I have always thought Foreflight was the worse out of all the gps apps. I am not sure how it got so popular?
 
Palmpilot said:
Which I would guess is too small a sample to be statistically representative of Foreflight users in general.
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All I said is that it seems like a vast majority of people are thinking about leaving FF. I didn’t say they are leaving, have left, or will leave. Just considering, pondering, contemplating. This thread doesn’t exactly scream out, “Hooray, Boeing bought out ForeFlight!” I really like FF, but I have no idea if Boeing’s ownership will be a positive, negative, or totally invisible impact on my usage. But thinking about it does indeed make me wonder...
 
flyingcheesehead said:
But change happens even without M&A. It's just different, and not always better (or worse).
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Ah, the eternal optimist. From my perspective, and my only perspective given how much M&A I've done and analyzed from both the acquiree management side and the acquired side, I'm not nearly so optimistic. I'm in the "I'll believe it when I see it" after at least year 3.

Of course, if ATC is privatized, things change materially as I expect Boeing to be one of the bidders.

YMMV and usual disclaimers apply.
 
WARNING: All theory and pondering :)

I'll start with one assumption...they wanted a iOS app and not a Android app. And one would think acquiring Garmin Pilot would not make any sense (unless they were to acquire Garmin :eek:). But that still leaves several iOS apps to select from. Several of those apps are listed in this thread and countless other threads as being preferred too or at least an option vs FF. With far few users and developers, they could have easily acquired one of the smaller competitor iOS apps. They instead went for the biggest player.

I think if they just wanted a jump start into tablet applications for Boeing flight decks they would have snapped up a smaller competitor then overhauled the UX (not cheap) and really branded it their way. But they didn't.

If they bought it because is seemed like it was a great revenue generator I would think they would leave it alone. But then again, if it was great revenue generator I don't think FF would have sold....unless there was a VC obligation they couldn't meet OR Boeing was a VC backer early on OR they saw even more revenue potential than FF did.

Someone mentioned FF had 180 employees. Depending on location that could easily mean a yearly operating cost obligation of about US$10M.

Lets say that there are 150K active subscriptions yearly averaging $100/subscriber. That would mean bringing in US$15M before taxes or $5M after all the bills are paid. Maybe they keep $3.5M of that after taxes, especially if most of their work falls under the R&D tax category. My numbers are surely off but only clearing $3.5M/year for almost 200 employees seems doable but I wouldn't think an investor would want to sink any more $$$$ into this - especially if the app seems pretty much saturated.

I am guessing Boeing will re-brand it lightly in the next release but no major features - unless FF had a really cool new feature that sweetened the pot for Boeing. They will rather quickly shed about 25% of the workers. And unload another 25% after that as these apps already seem overly feature rich. They will then 'fork' the code keeping the GA version of the software up to date but with diminishing new features. At the same time they will be working on something 'new' which re-uses a ton of what they accomplished, it will seem like less of an app and more of a Part NNN cockpit EFB. In about 3-4yrs they will only want to support the gargantuan new EFB, price it higher and sunset the FF app. Basically, the positive cash flow from the current FF model will help offset the purchase price and help towards whatever new thing they are really planning to make.

Oh well, its fun to theorize :)
 
Clip4 said:
Unless you are buying the Jepp chart option with the FF subscription, your argument is empty.
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I have no idea what you're on about. If your point is that IFR approach plates are a useful thing to have, I'm not sure that anyone would disagree with you; and most of the new apps include them. 100x better than hauling all those books around, and having to buy a new set every month.

I'm setting off on a cross-country flight next week and just downloaded every IFR and VFR chart for the entire country. It's probably saved me 30lbs or more, let alone how much easier the access is.
 
Following the thread(s) on the tie up.

For what it's worth:

- Jason and I are excited about the next leg and driving change
- This represents IMO a stepped-up effort for Boeing in GA
- Our monthly release cadence will continue
- Excited about what we're landing in the next couple of releases (think docs '2.0' refresh, advanced pilot-to-pilot sharing, smarter NOTAMS)
- We'll be at the shows as always
- We're driving the flight deck apps strategy and roadmap going forward
- We'll be looking to bring over some tech we've built for the commercial customers into FFM (some cool things there)

We'd love to hear some answers to "what can we build next for you"? Feel free to email us directly, too. tyson@ or jason@.

-tyson
 
Sinistar said:
But why did Boeing buy it?

1. It sees nice sales growth over time and will keep it generally the same
2. They want something of their own for their planes and didn't want to start from scratch
3. They want to create a new product and take out the largest competitor they could
4. FF features were to close to an end and the FF peeps wanted out
5. They want/need something that is Part XXX friendly and this was their easiest play
6. Other???
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None of the above. FF has been making strong inroads into US military and commercial. GA is fairly stable, not much growth there. However, remember that Boeing is international, and one of its really strong growth areas is non-US airlines (big and small) and charters around the globe. This is where FF can grow, not in the US. I'm guessing that Boeing sees FF as another tool in the international market.

As far as #3, Jepp tried that twice with dismal results each time.
 
What FF should do is suck in whatever FalconView functionality they don't already support and be done with it (mostly I would suspect that would be mission EO images. That's what we were exporting to that package).
\
 
wsuffa said:
Ah, the eternal optimist. From my perspective, and my only perspective given how much M&A I've done and analyzed from both the acquiree management side and the acquired side, I'm not nearly so optimistic. I'm in the "I'll believe it when I see it" after at least year 3.
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Heh... That leads me to a funny story. A former coworker of mine was working for a company that was bought, and was listening in via phone on the conference call where they were announcing the acquisition, and the CEO of the acquiring company was doing the whole dog and pony show about how great everything was going to be, etc... And my former coworker, reacting as one would, said to himself:

"I'll believe it when I see it."

He wasn't muted. :rofl:

Mr. New CEO demanded to know who that was, and he kept as quiet as he could while muting the phone... He ended up working there for a while longer, but he was right.

CodeMonkey said:
Following the thread(s) on the tie up.

We'd love to hear some answers to "what can we build next for you"? Feel free to email us directly, too. tyson@ or jason@.

-tyson
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Hey Tyson, thanks for stopping by! :)
 
Dstclair said:
In iOS the position source is outside of the apps control. FF must have checked to see if something was connected to the iPad through the iOS but there is not a way to determine which GPS is actually providing the position since iOS will automatically select the GPS that has the best signal. FF was only reporting that it was available. You might try turning on airplane mode which should disable the internal GPS, and then see if we're receiving the external signal. I'm not entirely sure that this doesn't disable Location Services, though.
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Thanks
 
CodeMonkey said:
Following the thread(s) on the tie up.

For what it's worth:

- Jason and I are excited about the next leg and driving change
- This represents IMO a stepped-up effort for Boeing in GA
- Our monthly release cadence will continue
- Excited about what we're landing in the next couple of releases (think docs '2.0' refresh, advanced pilot-to-pilot sharing, smarter NOTAMS)
- We'll be at the shows as always
- We're driving the flight deck apps strategy and roadmap going forward
- We'll be looking to bring over some tech we've built for the commercial customers into FFM (some cool things there)

We'd love to hear some answers to "what can we build next for you"? Feel free to email us directly, too. tyson@ or jason@.

-tyson
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+1 Thanks for posting. I was probably off by mile on my theory post...just hate to see something that is such a widely accepted and game changing piece of tech get shredded, eventually, after being sold. I hope for you and your FF family are allowed to operate and innovate as freely as you have been for as long as you can!
 
Jepp has some interesting tech in their compression of all those charts into a file small enough for your iPad to include everything for the whole world. I’d love to see that somehow implemented for FAA charts.

I’m going to stay positive. Acquisitions are made for many reasons. Until things hit the fan, I’ll continue to believe good things are coming.
 
Sinistar said:
Someone mentioned FF had 180 employees. Depending on location that could easily mean a yearly operating cost obligation of about US$10M.

Lets say that there are 150K active subscriptions yearly averaging $100/subscriber. That would mean bringing in US$15M before taxes or $5M after all the bills are paid. Maybe they keep $3.5M of that after taxes, especially if most of their work falls under the R&D tax category. My numbers are surely off but only clearing $3.5M/year for almost 200 employees seems doable but I wouldn't think an investor would want to sink any more $$$$ into this - especially if the app seems pretty much saturated.

I am guessing Boeing will re-brand it lightly in the next release but no major features - unless FF had a really cool new feature that sweetened the pot for Boeing. They will rather quickly shed about 25% of the workers. And unload another 25% after that as these apps already seem overly feature rich. They will then 'fork' the code keeping the GA version of the software up to date but with diminishing new features. At the same time they will be working on something 'new' which re-uses a ton of what they accomplished, it will seem like less of an app and more of a Part NNN cockpit EFB. In about 3-4yrs they will only want to support the gargantuan new EFB, price it higher and sunset the FF app. Basically, the positive cash flow from the current FF model will help offset the purchase price and help towards whatever new thing they are really planning to make.

Oh well, its fun to theorize :)
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What's missing from the financial analysis is that the large company will burden the subsidiary with corporate overhead. In most cases, a company this size doesn't have the financial (or operational) controls or staffing that Big Company (BC). Likewise computers and resources.

I was involved in one transaction where the acquirer corporate IT staff insisted that newly purchased subsidiary of 400-odd people would have to have *every* computer replaced. Not "have the corporate software load installed" but replaced. Most of the subsidiary's computers were 0-6 months old. Corporate IT said the replacement was necessary because they wanted to "bring everything to corporate standard" and "it's less costly than installing the load would be". That alone added 1.5 million to the transaction cost. The corporate overhead burden added 9% to the subsidiary operating cost (which was low compared to some other deals). All of a sudden the subsidiary acquisition model changed to the negative and cost cuts were imposed.

Plenty of other stories where that came from.

The real question is what will happen when the founder's lockup contracts expire.
 
I'm not jumping ship, and would likely stick with FF even if faced with a price increase - I'm not interested in chucking my investment in learning, and having an "intuitive" relationship with the app.

I like it, it works very well, and it talks to my G530. I magine Garmin pilot probably works OK; I just don't care to invest the time in finding out. Will wait and see.
 
I will stick with foreflight too. Played with Gamin pilot. Went right back to FF. Still have the subscription, but it will likely get canceled on renewal. Even with the free IFR upgrade with my Garmin One-pack subscription. I’m with you, I don’t want to learn a new program. Plus, I’m happy with it.
 
Boeing. If you are listening. I couldn’t see the charts so good at night, could you fix that? I might need reading glasses but I’m too vain.
 
If I bought 7 minute abs, then I'd have more than just one ab to worry about ... sounds complicated.
 
CodeMonkey said:
If I bought 7 minute abs, then I'd have more than just one ab to worry about ... sounds complicated.
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When the founder of ForeFlight takes the time to check on feedback on the board...it’s hard not to think that FF as we know it not going anywhere but better for GA...thanks Tyson
 
wsuffa said:
The real question is what will happen when the founder's lockup contracts expire.
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Yep! Every acquisition I've been at, the CEO, founders, and acquiring company all trumpeted what a great thing it was, and how they were going to take a hands-off approach. Six months to a year later, the CEO (and sometimes founders) bailed, and the acquiring company started dismantling whatever culture there was. Within 18 months to two years at the most, there was no shred of the old company left.

I'm very skeptical and wary of acquisitions. I fully understand founders and other stakeholders wanting to get a payout for their hard work. I would also. But from my experience, an acquisition is usually the end of innovation and company culture. Afterwards, you're just a cog in a machine. Especially after the founders and execs leave, which they almost always do.
 
pigpenracing said:
I have always thought Foreflight was the worse out of all the gps apps. I am not sure how it got so popular?
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Clearly opinions vary, I tried them all and IMHO nothing has this built in 'elegance' that FF provides. I only use it as an EFB, I don't use it for in-flight navigation, with G1000 I don't need an Ipad based navigation.
I can swallow even a 30% price increase but I don't think it will happen, I am an optimist.
 
LoneAspen said:
Yep! Every acquisition I've been at, the CEO, founders, and acquiring company all trumpeted what a great thing it was, and how they were going to take a hands-off approach. Six months to a year later, the CEO (and sometimes founders) bailed, and the acquiring company started dismantling whatever culture there was. Within 18 months to two years at the most, there was no shred of the old company left.

I'm very skeptical and wary of acquisitions. I fully understand founders and other stakeholders wanting to get a payout for their hard work. I would also. But from my experience, an acquisition is usually the end of innovation and company culture. Afterwards, you're just a cog in a machine. Especially after the founders and execs leave, which they almost always do.
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The acquiree that once had their logo on a building almost invariably turns into two cubicles in the basement of the acquirer.
 
ircphoenix said:
The acquiree that once had their logo on a building almost invariably turns into two cubicles in the basement of the acquirer.
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BILL
Uh, we're gonna need to move your desk downstairs into Storage B.

MILTON
No...I...I...

BILL
Uh, we have some new people coming in and we need all the space we can
get.

MILTON
No...no...no...no...but...but...but...I, I, I -

BILL
And if you could could go ahead and get a can of pesticide and take care
of the roach problem we've been having that would be great.

MILTON
I can't...Excuse me. I believe you have my stapler?
 
As I said over on purple, Boeing is likely going to use foreflight revenues to fund their defense of all the lawsuits that are invariably headed their way over the 737max crashes. :rolleyes:
 
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