NDI, bye bye?
NDI, or Nautical Data International, just announced that it’s selling its exclusive right to produce and license digital versions of Canadian charts back to the Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS), effective on March 30. It sounds like that’s the end of a long and unpleasant affair I’ve discussed before, but who knows for sure? If you read the Q&A’s, you’ll find that NDI plans to stay in business, and to continue its suits against C-Map and Navionics. I haven’t followed this dispute closely, but have noticed that both those companies are now offering very reasonably priced Canadian charts, especially when compared to NDI’s PC charts. In fact, I know boats that have gone from PC to plotter mainly because of that price difference. Here’s hoping that CHS will make Canadian rasters and ENCs more affordable and easier to use.
That can only be great news for us in the Great White North! I've checked back with the NDI website several times over the last year or so. Every time I'm in complete disbelief at the prices. Especially when I can go download ENCs for the entire US with a single click.
Come on Canada...do the right thing! It's time to make up for that horrendous real with NDI and start giving away (or at least at a reasonable cost) what our tax dollars paid for in the first place.
richard.