China Southern Airlines in 2007 picked Panasonic's eX2 IFE system for its future fleet of Boeing 787s so this morning's announcement that the carrier wants eX2 installed on its five on-order Airbus A380s wasn't the biggest surprise on the planet.
What I found curious, however, was why Panasonic didn't wait just a little bit longer, until 17 December to be precise, to make the announcement. That's the day that the IFE giant will open its new China office in Shanghai.
Well, here's why. Panasonic has had this deal in the hopper for some time so it wanted to get the news out there.
Significantly, however, the company has also secured another big Chinese customer and is hopeful of getting the all-clear to formally announce the deal around the time of the Shanghai office's opening. The company is waiting for the undisclosed carrier's "blessing", says the firm.
On an aside, but not a complete tangent as you'll see below, do you remember last week when I reported that the CDMA Development Group (CDG) bestowed a Network Technology Innovation award on Aircell and partner ZTE for their work to adapt 3G CDMA systems "for the unique challenges of providing Inflight Internet service - including challenges of distance and speed differential between transceiver and receiver"?
Well it took a little while but Aircell has just sent me a picture of company EVP and CTO Joe Cruz with the CDMA award. Joe is the man on the left in the red tie. The man on the right with an award is George Sun, the CEO of ZTE.
Okay, so what is this tangent you speak of RWG? Well, Aircell and Panasonic - while technically competitors in the in-flight connectivity sector, depending on how you view such things - are going to be working with each other in the months ahead, as they have for about a year.
Here's why. Virgin America yesterday commercially launched and started charging for Aircell's Gogo in-flight Internet service following the 22 November beta launch and subsequent Thanksgiving holiday Gogo freebee for passengers.
Multiple Virgin America aircraft will offer Gogo by the end of 2008, with the service expected to be available on all Virgin America flights by the second quarter of 2009.
However, Virgin America also plans to offer Gogo through its embedded IFE system "Red", which boasts Panasonic hardware and CoKinetic software.
An Aircell spokesman now reveals: "The integration of Gogo with Virgin America's Red entertainment system will take place after Gogo has been deployed fleet-wide."
He adds: "Over the past year, the companies have been working closely with one another to build a strong foundation for the eventual addition of Gogo connectivity to the Red system.
"At first, the plan is to enable text and instant messaging, but Red is a great platform from which Virgin America can offer a suite of connectivity-enabled products and services. We believe that connectivity-enabled IFE is going to be one of the hottest trends in 2009."
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