Garmin already had one or two models of celular/gps/ploters, some time
ago, and yet has the Rino, both systems designed to send user position
to other similar equipment an receive others position and ploting on
the map. Thus, Garmin recognized for long time the need and advantage
of this type of communication, this in a simple consumer market
equipment, imagine now that AIS is official and being accepted
worldwide at an incredible fast path?

And Garmin already has demonsntrated equipment for the similar AIS
function for general aviation ( I do not remember now the name, see it
in the garmin Web page, Aviation) wich is much more complex. Besides
this, Garmin has excelent gps/ploters, good cartography, a new fast 100
MB/s network arquiteture (Garmin Network), wich interfaces with the
recently announced Garmin radar, etc.

I have no doubt that Garmin will enter the AIS very soon, I believe
that it has not yet released the support for AIS in the actual Chart
Ploters (Garmin Network at last) only because they want to support
theyr own AIS receiver and transponder. My doubt is only with regard
the AIS in the lower end of ploters like my GpsMap 276C, but I hope it
will have AIS, soon or later.