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Originally Posted by JakeRich
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Garmin is pushing their own proprietary interface standard when 90% of the universe (maybe more) are settled on the NMEA standard. Same logic applies to SIRF, but they at least have recognized reality and support NMEA universally. Garmin still has their collective heads in the sand and stick with the Garmin protocol. Adds nothing, just locks them out of the more general market. (Or locks YOU into their world, depending on your point of view.) Their market share will never get very large in the PPC environment, but they are probably betting on the single use, in car, not very flexible GPS units providing a cash cow for them. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. Proprietary systems don't usually succeed very well in today's market. I think Garmin's market share is shrinking, based on the number of new competitors in the market who seem to be doing very well.
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They probably bet on Betamax approach.
Garmin has gps 10 which also handle NMEA + proprietary protocol. Their iQue software still does not handle NMEA.
Same thing happens to Sony approach to Memory Stick. I recall all Sony digicam only came with Memory Stick. And the first Sony digicam (707 I believe ) first came with cf memory back a couple of years ago. And after that alle Sony line comes with dual support. I can see that is probably the outcome in Garmin gps units(all resulting in additional cost to the manufacturer and likely consumers too). The similarity of both (Sony / Garmin) is striking. Quite of bit of both of their products are engineering marvel. Sony caved in on the digicam front. Is Garmin going to as well?
Daniel