Regional Prevalence of Embedded Systems
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The embedded systems panel, which included Jonathan Norris – vice-president Sales, Lumexis Corporation, Matthias Walther, manager, Integrated Marketing, Panasonic Avionics, and Dieter Dhondt, head of Sales and Marketing, EuMEA Region, Thales Avionics, took place on day 2 at APEX Middle East in Abu Dhabi.
Paul Thorpe, digEcor’s President EMEA, first outlined the different types of embedded IFE systems available and their benefits and highlighted feature options, project management goals and the potential risks of upgrading your IFE service. He noted that the ability to deliver content choice to the passenger is foremost – if content demands are not met, then the passenger will tend to bring own devices on board. Thorpe then took his questions to the panel.
When asked about their views of the embedded versus wireless approach, Jon Norris was quick to jump in first, explaining that it wasn’t necessarily an either/or issue. “Airlines want to differentiate…we will see blended solutions. I can foresee that you could have four different IFE systems all working on a centralized server and offering different functionality on the plane.” Matthias Walther added that if you keep the focus on personalization, the experience will remain memorable, and IFE is going to play a big part of it, illustrating that the phone or wireless device is not a threat to embedded seatback models – they simply present an opportunity.
Dieter Dhondt acknowledged that many IFE RFPs are out within the current regional market, and the landscape for these systems is within a complimentary Wi-Fi environment, but the screen sizes for embedded systems are still getting bigger and bigger for premium classes. The availability of reliable Wi-Fi has not degraded passengers’ interest in the seatback model.
“Wireless is a complement to the embedded system.” – Dieter Dhondt, Thales Avionics
In terms of managing customer relationships, Norris warned of pigeonholing airlines and even the architecture of IFE systems themselves. Why isn’t embedded wireless an option? “We’ll see some of these technologies merging, taking the best bits og what’s there to optimize the system. We’re going to see a lot of merging…different solutions for various classes…You will have a wireless network on every aircraft in the near future, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there won’t be seatback IFE.”
Walther agreed, and also cautioned that “reliability” is one thing he needed to correct from the previous slides shown by Thorpe. Embedded systems have redundancies in place to ensure a seamless and reliable service, “if my monitor goes down and I don’t have any content, I can still pull power from my neighbor’s system. One seat can power three. It’s reliable IFE on every flight for every passenger.”