As an aside, it is in all OUR interests for BOTH Avplan and Ozrunways to thrive.
Agreed. But lets not forget that OzRunways & AvPlan are just aviation mapping & data providers and that there are others.
From memory there are 4 licenced providers other than Airservices Australia - OzRunways, AvPlan, Jeppesen, and Lido (a programme that is from an offshoot of Lufthansa). Plus, you can pretty much now rely on data from Garmin on one of its new moving map panel or handheld GPS units and soon (if not already) Dynon.
And you've got to expect that one day ForeFlight's dominance in the US will lead it to branch out in Australia. And Jepp has a VFR product in the US which you've got to expect will come to Australia one day also.
And it is still actually legal to use AsA paper maps and documents.
OzRunways & Avplan are both good products and both deserve to succeed, but its not a 2 horse race and its a reasonably crowded space with probably a further shake out looming.
Which makes Air Venture's singling out of AvPlan look all the more bizarre