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Subject: Sept 1 news:Shephard UK news/WAEA show mentions APS/Wencor/IMS

From emma

PostID 420140 On Thursday, September 01, 2005 (EST) at 7:59:31 AM

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September 1, 2005 – WITH the biggest event in the IFE/communications calendar now just weeks away, it’s time for a calm look at the industry’s most volatile segment – handheld IFE.

Anyone visiting the WAEA show in Hamburg on September 20-23 with a view to getting a handle on this market should keep his eyes open for activity from no fewer than five actual or potential providers of handheld systems: APS/Wencor, IMS, Panasonic, Astronics and Global ePoint.

In recent months most of these players have been involved in a complex courting ritual that needs to be explained before their individual credentials are laid out.

Creator of the pioneering digEplayer, which it unveiled in September 2003, APS was acquired by Utah-based aviation spares specialist Wencor last October. Emboldened by the evident success of that move, Wencor this summer made a move for California-based IMS, creator of the second-generation PEA handheld.

Announced with a flourish at the beginning of July, the deal was to have seen Wencor taking majority ownership of IMS, leaving the existing management team in place to blend IMS with APS, and the combined operation developing a neatly integrated range of products addressing the full range of market opportunities.

Three weeks later it was all off, with Wencor CEO Brent Wood citing “irreconcilable differences on several key issues”. For his part, IMS chairman Joe Renton alluded pointedly to the superior IFE industry experience of his management team and emphasised that his company remained firmly in the market in its own right.

An acquisition that did go through this year was that of General Dynamics’ IFE interests by Astronics. But while lighting, power and networking specialist Astronics is clearly at ease with the task of marketing GD’s successful Empower range of in-seat power products, it seems to be scratching its head over what to do with YES!, a tablet PC-based handheld IFE product. So much so that earlier this year it was reported to be working with Panasonic to co-market YES! along with the Japanese giant’s emerging Personal Media Player.

Yet another takeover appears to have given rise to the latest handheld offering to come to the attention of Inflight Online. In May of last year US IFE and inflight communications installations specialist AirWorks was bought out by Global ePoint, which builds customised computing solutions and designs and markets digital video and audio products. At the time the AirWorks product range included cockpit door surveillance systems, an electronic flight bag and a laptop power system. Since then it has also sprouted a handheld IFE device called AirPlay.

Amidst this welter of wannabes and potential winners the original and still the most commercially successful supplier is APS, now owned by Wencor. New contracts for digEplayer have come this year from several low-cost carriers - including Independence Air and Midwest Airlines in the USA, Canada’s CanJet, and Pacific Blue, the international arm of Australia’s Virgin Blue. Other new customers are full-service operator Icelandair, British leisure carrier MyTravelUK, Dutch-based leisure/charter carrier Martinair and specialist charter operator Russia Jet Direct.

Wencor isn’t resting on these laurels, however. Aware of the pressure from other suppliers offering advantages over the excellent but limited digEplayer, the company is putting money into new products, including the semi-embedded digEsystem, and addressing markets outside IFE – this summer a company called Railway Media announced that it was renting digEplayers to travellers on the US Amtrak rail system.