Per the 6/22/10 PR, delivery of the current eVU order to SriLankan was announced.
The 8/4/10 PR stated suspending developement of the next generation eVU.
“While we added Sri Lanka Airlines as our newest eVU customer last quarter, portable IFE business conditions for new hardware are still not showing improvement,” commented Falk. “We are suspending further development of our next generation eVU hardware and instead we are updating eVU’s housing with a dramatically enhanced new look as well as making other hardware improvements. eVU is a proven leader in portable IFE because of its extended battery life, ease of operation and its rugged reliability. Should IFE business conditions improve or we partner outside of portable IFE, we can rapidly complete the next generation upgrade. We are receiving increasing interest in our IFE services and we’re working to grow this side of the eVU business to profitability.”
We then had confrimed by an email reply by RP to DB, the updated eVU was presented in private meetings at the Long Beach APEX deal, and an add would be coming out in a trade magazine in the 4th calendar quarter. We have referred to the upgraded eVU as "new skin" and "face lift" model.
IMO, suspending the next gen eVU was a smart yet tough decision, even though disappointing to us EDIG stock holders, especially after hearing at the 2009 SHM what new features and benefits it would have, but to burn limited R&D money to introduce it, when the IFE market remains depressed, whould have proven to be a huge mistake...again IMO.
The CE industry starts and stops new product introduction, re-groups and re-starts all the time, so why should EDIG be any different?
sman is right, we need the new gen eVU, and IMO it will happen when demand returns.
In the mean time, the focus is on new technologies outside of IFE with Dr Pat apparently at the helm per FF's latest comments on 9/29/10.
“Our new IP developments beyond Flash-R and eVU are progressing rapidly,” added Falk. “We’re on schedule to file patents and announce these new technologies next quarter. Also, we’ve received and responded to the second USPTO office action on our active digital storage media encryption patent application.”
And moving the SHM to Feb-2011, is an indication IMO that the "elements will be self evident" between now and then.
