Motorcycle gear manufacturer Dainese has announced its plant to offer its enterprising D-Air technology to other race suit manufacturers, opening up the competition to the high-tech safety tech considered by many to be one of the best in the business.

The announcement immediately got the attention of some race suit manufacturers, two of which - Vircos and Furygan - have already signed up to incorporate the D-Air Armor in their products.

While some have pointed out that Dainese’s decision to effectively release its trade secrets could come back and bite the company, the move to offer D-Air technology to the competition is a win-win scenario for the business of personal rider protection in general. Not only do other companies gain access to the D-Air tech that allows them to use it for their own products, it also makes the whole business of rider protection much more credible.

There’s also a growing belief that this move was spearheaded by investment group Investcorp, which recently bought a majority stake into the company from founder Lino Dainese, in an attempt to build a stronger brand that can be counted on to not only create products that meet the highest safety standards of personal ride protection, but also make money by selling this technology to other companies.

It would be interesting to see how Dainese’s chief rival, Alpinestars, responds to this move. Don’t count on the latter signing up to use its rival’s gear anytime soon, but hearing that Dainese is trying to dominate the segment by offering its tech to other companies probably didn’t sit too well for Alpinestars.

The latter hasn’t announced anything on its end and yet I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes out with a response soon. It’s unclear what that response will be, but unless Alpinestars wants to keep it’s head in the game, it probably needs to do something as newsworthy as what its rival just did.

Continue reading to read more about Dainese’s decision to offer its D-Air Airbag Technology to motorcycle gear manufacturers.

Why it matters

I’m all for putting the idea of motorcycle safety above anything else so I was glad to see Dainese make this decision to share its patented D-Air Airbag technology with other motorcycle gear manufacturers.

Some people think it’s a bad idea from a business standpoint, arguing that Dainese is making a mistake sharing the equivalent of its “secret sauce” for the benefit of the competition. There’s a good point somewhere in there, but it still misses the real importance of why Dainese decided to take this step.

The company, it seems, is confident enough with its D-Air Airbag technology and the many benefits it possesses, so much so that it’s willing to let other companies use it so they can improve their own products.

I kneel in the altar of putting paramount importance on safety when it comes to motorcycle riding and I’m pretty sure that Dainese does too. If it has what it believes to be a step up in quality from what other companies have, sharing it with them is a smart move to improve safety levels across the board.

Now I know that its biggest rival, Alpinestars, is developing its own technology so it’s unlikely that it’s going to use something that it’s biggest competitor has patented. But for those who don’t have the means and the technology to do it, taking advantage of Dainese’s offer is not only a smart business move, but more importantly, it’s a step towards improving the quality of their own products by making them safer than what they otherwise would have been.

It’s a win-win situation across the board. Dainese, for its part, has my respect for sharing a safety technology considered as one of the best in the industry. Everybody comes out smelling like roses here.